It is rare and only for very important reasons that individual ships change their flag, even rarer - ships of the fleet, and very rarely - ships of the entire navy of the state. The latter is usually associated with a change in the country's political and social system, a revolution, and less often - for other reasons. And yet, in the history of our Fatherland, all the above-mentioned reasons have taken place. For example, in the days of the Great Patriotic War, civilian ships, becoming patrol ships and submarine hunters, changed the National Flag of the USSR to the Naval Flag, and icebreakers-to the flag of auxiliary fleet vessels... During the difficult days of the civil War, many ships of the Black Sea Fleet were forced to raise the red flag of the RSFSR, then the yellow-blue independent Ukraine, then the St. Andrew's Flag... After the October Revolution, during the search for and formation of new state and naval symbols in 1920, 1923, and 1935, our warships changed their flags more than once. Finally, in 1991 - 1992, during the collapse of the USSR, the St. Andrew's flag was returned to the Navy.

How did the process of returning this Peter's relic take place?

In early January 1992, at the All-Army Officers ' Meeting in connection with the collapse of the USSR and the abolition of the State Flag of the USSR, it was proposed to petition the highest authorities of the Russian Federation to replace the Naval flag of the USSR with the traditional flag of the Russian Fleet-St. Andrew's.

Already on January 16, the following decision was made at the working meeting of the heads of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Moscow:: "In connection with the termination of the existence of the USSR and the need to bring the status of ships and vessels of the Navy in accordance with the requirements of international law and practice, it is advisable to replace the naval symbols.

Please note that the historical Russian St. Andrew's Flag (a white flag with two blue diagonal stripes)is being introduced as the main (aft) naval flag

When part of the ships and vessels of the Navy of the former USSR is transferred to the member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the naval flags of the respective states are raised on them instead of the St. Andrew's flag..."

A commission was established to develop draft Regulations on the Naval Flags of the Russian Federation and the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, headed by First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Navy, Vice Admiral V. E. Lyashenko. It included 10 representatives of the central bodies of the Navy. The author of these lines also participated in the work of the commission.

When preparing documents and developing Navy flags, proposals received from fleets, Navy veterans and the naval community were considered and taken into account. The commission's work was based on a scientifically based approach to creating flag drawings, taking into account the traditions and practical experience of both the pre-revolutionary and Soviet Navies. Whenever possible, the panels of well-established and universally known flags, braid pennants and pennants remained unchanged, and only their wing was replaced.

The return to the St. Andrew's flag also led to the return to the fleet of the historical huys, developed in 1700 by Peter I himself (in the Naval Charter of 1720). Peter calls it "guis, aka keysers-flag"), which was raised on ships of the 1st and 2nd rank of the Soviet Navy until 1924. And since our Navy has ships that carry the Guards, Red Banner and Guards Red Banner Naval Flags, special St. Andrew's flags were developed for them while preserving the previously established differences. Moreover, for order-bearing ships, it was planned to place one or a number of drawings on the panel, both those now honored by the crews of orders, and those that can be obtained later, and the place of their location was established-kryzh.

Their own special symbols in agreement with their "owners" - the commander (now commander-in-chief) The Navy and the Chief of the General Staff of the Navy - acquired their official flags.

In coordination with the leadership of the Russian Navy, the Naval flag and pennant of ships (boats) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were developed.

In addition, the commission developed a ritual for changing flags, in which, to simplify the entire procedure and eliminate possible errors, the current Ship's Charter of 1978 was used to the maximum. The ritual provided for the solemn raising of the Naval Flag of the USSR with a reading of its history, then the announcement of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on the establishment of a new Naval flag (St. Andrew's) flag. The ceremony culminated in the simultaneous lowering of the Soviet Navy flag and the raising of the Russian Navy flag to the National Anthem of the Russian Federation. By the way, on a number of ships, including the Aurora, the flag was consecrated before lifting.

As a result, the commission's work was prepared and reported to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy

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draft decree of the President of the Russian Federation and its appendix with color drawings of flags, braid pennants and pennants of the Navy and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, their description and indication of the size and proportions of the elements of the drawings.

Unexpected difficulties were encountered in the final stage, just a week before the new flags were raised. It so happened that after the end of the commission's work, the State Heraldic Service was established, which submitted on July 20, 1992 to the General Staff of the Navy "An extract from the minutes of the meeting of the group of experts on vexilology at the State Heraldic Service of the Russian Federation" with a number of comments. In particular, it was required: "Not to include in the decree... Guards, Order and Guards Order naval flags", although these flags and ranks won in battles were not stripped by the crews of ships, and, moreover, by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 162 of 20.02.92, the orders and titles of the USSR were reserved for citizens, and therefore for the crews of ships. In return, it was proposed to attach parts of Guards (?) and order ribbons to the St. Andrew's flags! It is not difficult to imagine what would have happened to such flags: in a minute, the ribbons would have become entangled and overlapped with the flagships, and, of course,it would have been impossible to lower them from the flagpole or gaff.

No less categorical was the insistent demand of the chairman of the Heraldic Service G. V. Vilinbakhov to replace the blue color in the flag descriptions (which, based on historical data, is clearly stipulated in the above Protocol signed by the heads of the CIS states) with blue (traditionally used on the flags of auxiliary fleet vessels). The commission had to refer to the description of the National Flag in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which states that the color of the middle stripe is azure. And this word is interpreted in all dictionaries as "azure", i.e. "blue" or "light blue". A number of other comments were also made. However, the Commission managed to preserve and defend both the historical continuity and the appearance of our flags that has become familiar to sailors of all countries, as well as to save money in the current lawless prices by making minimal changes to the flag design, especially where it was possible to limit the replacement of the wing with the image of the Naval Flag.

As a result of the work, the differences were overcome, leaving the flags developed by the Commission unchanged, and on July 21, f992, Decree No. 798 was signed by the President of the Russian Federation.

Later, the drawings of all flags were sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation for notification of foreign countries, and also published in the special issue of notices to navigators No. 9040 for 1992.

On July 26, 1992, flags, pennants and braid pennants were solemnly replaced on all ships of the Russian Navy, except the Black Sea Fleet, in accordance with the developed ritual.

Later, in accordance with the Agreement signed in Yalta on August 3, 1992 between the Russian Federation on the principles of forming the Russian Navy and the Ukrainian Navy on the basis of the Black Sea Fleet of the former USSR and the Agreement on the Naval Symbols of the Black Sea Fleet for the Transition period of September 3, 1992 until the end of 1995, On October 1, 1992, the Naval Flag of the Black Sea Fleet was installed, which is a white cloth with a blue stripe running along the lower edge of the flag, 1/6 of the width of the flag cloth. Moreover, when ships and vessels of the Black Sea Fleet enter the waters and ports of foreign countries, the National Flag of Russia or Ukraine must additionally be raised on the mast yard, depending on the ship's ownership. However, it was never put into effect, as well as the corresponding pennant: the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet remained under the Naval flags of the USSR until 1996, and the ships and vessels of Ukraine, respectively, raised their own-the Naval and State flags.

Due to the repeated reassignment of Border Troops to various leading security structures of the Russian Federation, up to their separation into an independent structure of the Russian Federation with direct subordination to the President of the Russian Federation - FPS, the flags, pennants and side sign (flag-mark) of ships (boats), vessels and officials of the Border Troops of the Russian Federation were approved much later by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation 1993 N 720.

The flags of the Supreme Commander - in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation-the President of the Russian Federation, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were approved on September 21, 1995 by the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, were previously approved by the State Herald under the President of the Russian Federation and submitted for inclusion in the Presidential Decree, but have not yet been legalized, although they are used.

Retired Captain of the 1st rank Vilen MILANOV, scientific consultant of the General Staff of the Navy on flag studies and naval symbols, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, Honorary member of the NGO "Academy of Russian Symbols MARS", Doctor of Historical Sciences

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