Skip to content

Wiki Banderas
Open menu

Flag of Buryatia

Blue, white and yellow with the soyombo, a Mongolian symbol of moon, sun and fire: the flag of Buryatia, the Russian republic by Lake Baikal.

Flag of Buryatia
Coat of arms
Learn to read it Test yourself

The flag, in figures

Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.

Proportions
1:22 wide for every 1 high. 49 flags in the catalogue share it.
Properties
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
Use
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.
Adopted
199229 October 1992 · 34 years ago
Colours
  • blue
  • white
  • yellow
Reference shades: the official one may vary slightly.
Coat of arms
YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.
Designer
N. Batúyev, V. Abáyev and S. Kalmykov
123

Take a closer look

  1. The three stripes

  2. 1

    The fire

  3. 2

    The sun

  4. 3

    The crescent moon

How it is described

The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.

Vexillological description

It is a rectangular field (the cloth) with a 1:2 ratio with three horizontal stripes of different widths and a yellow symbol next to the flagpole.

Blue stripe
at the top, taking up half the height of the flag.
White and yellow stripes
below, each a quarter of the height.
Soyombo
in yellow, inside the blue stripe, a quarter of the length of the flag from the flagpole. From bottom to top: a crescent, a round sun and a fire with three flames.
Blue
the same tone as that of the flag of Russia, according to the law.

What it carries

Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.

Its history in dates

Every date in its story, at a glance.

  1. 1990

    After declaring itself sovereign in 1990

  2. 1992

    The Supreme Council of the republic approved the current flag on 29 October 1992

  3. 2007

    Kalmykov, and a law of 2007 confirmed it

The full story

How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.

Buryatia is a republic of Russia in southern Siberia, next to Lake Baikal and the border with Mongolia. Its flag mixes the Russian colours with the soyombo, an old symbol of the Mongol peoples. The Buryats are close relatives of the Mongols and many are Buddhists.

How it came about

When the Soviet Union broke up, Buryatia wanted symbols of its own. The Supreme Council of the republic approved the current flag on 29 October 1992. It was designed by N. Batúyev, V. Abáyev and S. Kalmykov, and a law of 2007 confirmed it.

How it has changed

In Soviet times the flag was red, like that of all the autonomous republics, and only the text changed.

  1. Red flag with the initials of Russia and of the Buryat-Mongol republic in yellow letters
    Autor desconocido · CC0

    1937-1954

    Red, with the initials of Russia and of the Buryat-Mongol Republic in Cyrillic and Latin script.

  2. Red flag with a blue stripe next to the flagpole, the sickle and hammer, and the name of the republic in Russian
    Autor desconocido, obra derivada de KSEltar · Public domain

    1958-1978

    The republic stops being called Buryat-Mongol. It carries the Russian flag of the time, with its blue stripe, and the name in Russian.

  3. Red flag with blue stripe, sickle and hammer, and the name of the republic in Russian and Buryat
    Osipov Georgiy Nokka · Public domain

    1978-1990

    The name in Buryat is added below the Russian one.

  4. Red flag with blue stripe, sickle and hammer, and the name Buryat SSR in Russian and Buryat
    Kaim Amin · Public domain

    1990-1992

    After declaring itself sovereign in 1990, the republic removes the word ‘autonomous’ from its name.

  5. Current flag of Buryatia: blue, white and yellow stripes with the yellow soyombo

    1992

    The Soviet red disappears and the blue, white, yellow and soyombo arrive.

What it means

According to the flag law, each colour has a meaning of its own.

  • Blue

    the Buryat people and the ‘Eternal Blue Sky’, the god of heaven of ancient Mongol beliefs.

  • White

    moral purity and peace.

  • Yellow

    the sacred colour of Tibetan Buddhism, the religion of many Buryats.

  • White and blue together

    in the same order as on the flag of Russia, they recall that Buryatia is part of it.

  • Soyombo

    the moon, the sun and the fire. The three flames are the past, the present and the future.

Fun facts

  1. The same symbol as Mongolia

    The soyombo is also the emblem on the flag of Mongolia. There it carries more pieces: Buryatia’s keeps only the moon, the sun and the fire.

  2. A blue fixed by law

    Buryatia’s law requires its blue to be the same as that of the Russian flag. Looking similar is not enough.

  3. It had a smaller sister

    The autonomous district of Aga, another Buryat land, had from 2001 a flag with a simpler blue soyombo. The district disappeared in 2008, when it joined the region of Chita.

  4. Buryat reached the flag in 1978

    Until 1978 the flag only spoke Russian. That year the name of the republic was added in Buryat, the language of the territory itself.

Location

Buy the flag

Buy the flag on AmazonAffiliate link: if you buy, Wiki Banderas receives a small commission.

How much have you learnt?

Test what you have read about the flag of Buryatia.

  1. 1. Which one is the flag of Buryatia?

  2. 2. Which of these elements appears on the flag?

  3. 3. What are the proportions (height:width) of the flag?

  4. 4. In which year was the current flag adopted?

Sources

Text based on the article “Флаг Бурятии (Wikipedia en ruso)” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sources consulted:

Credits

Flag image: Elvonudinium, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.

More flags

Accessibility preferences

Accessibility statement

Quick profiles

Text and reading

Text size
Default
Line height
Default
Letter spacing
Default
Word spacing
Default

Colour

Motion and orientation

Cursor