Flag of Bashkortostan

The flag of Bashkortostan, a republic of the Russian Federation, is three horizontal stripes —blue, white and green —with a golden seven-petalled flower inside a circle, at the centre of the white stripe. The flower makes it unmistakable: there is no other flag with seven petals.

How it came about

Bashkortostan regained the name of republic in 1990, and on 25 February 1992 its parliament approved the flag, the coat of arms and the anthem all at once. The design came out of an open competition held in November 1990.

Before that flag there were two others. The one of 1918, of the first Bashkir government, had the same three stripes but in a different order: blue on top, green in the middle and white below. Blue meant belonging to the Turkic-speaking peoples, green devotion to Islam and white the wish for peace. With the USSR came red flags with the initials of the republic.

How it has changed

It has changed once, and little: the ratio.

1. 

   1918

   The first Bashkir government approves three equal stripes: blue on top, green in the middle and white below. It is the classic version of the Bashkir flag.

2. 

   1992

   On 25 February 1992 the parliament approves the current design, with the stripes ordered blue, white and green and a ratio of 1:2, twice as long as it is high.

3. 

   2003

   On 12 February 2003 the ratio is changed to 2:3 and the golden circle comes to measure a sixth of the length. It is the flag used today.

What it means

• Blue stripe

  the clarity, the virtue and the purity of thought of the peoples of the republic.

• White stripe

  peacefulness, openness and willingness to cooperate.

• Green stripe

  freedom and the eternity of life.

• Seven-petalled flower

  the flower of the kuraí, a wild herb very abundant in the region. Its seven petals represent the seven lineages that, according to tradition, gave rise to the union of the peoples.

Fun facts

1. Two flags with the same colours

   The one of 1918 and the current one have the same three colours, but in a different order. In 1992 the green stripe moved from the centre to the lower edge, and there are two explanations: so as not to be confused with that of the Republic of Komi, adopted a few months earlier, and so as not to repeat its own 1918 flag.

2. The flag and the coat of arms do not carry the same thing

   The emblem of the flag is the golden circle with the flower. The coat of arms of the state, approved three years later, carries something else: a monument to Salavat Yulaev, a Bashkir folk hero, over a rising sun.

3. Two designs that were discarded

   Two more flags were entered in the competition: one with the crescent, a symbol shared by the whole Muslim world, and another with an ancient swastika, which in India meant light and abundance. The commission rejected them: the first was a religious symbol and the second was associated with another era.

4. The name and the flag, the same day

   On 25 February 1992 the Supreme Soviet of the Socialist Republic of Bashkir changed the name of the republic and approved the flag in the same session. The law of 1999 came later: it gathered the same thing without changing the design, which is why almost no vexillological source gives that date.