Flag of Chechnya

Flag of the Chechen Republic

Proportion	2:3
Adopted	June 22, 2004
Design	A horizontal tricolor of green (representing Islam), white (representing peace or the Caucasus Mountains) and red (representing bloodshed). The national ornament is at the white band at the hoist.
Designed by	Ramzan Kadyrov

The flag of Chechnya is a rectangle with sides in the ratio 2:3, the same ratio as the flag of the Russian Federation. The flag is composed of three horizontal bars of, from top to bottom: green, representing Islam; white; and red; superimposed on them is a narrow vertical white band at the hoist, containing the national ornament, a design of four golden scroll shapes. The horizontal bars are in the proportions 4:1:3.

This flag, introduced in 2004, is primarily used by the government of Chechnya while the independentist flags are commonly used by opposition forces.

Historic flags

From 1957 to 1978, the Soviet flag of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was based on the flag of the Russian SFSR with the addition of a blue vertical bar on the hoist side and the abbreviated name of the republic (НГӀАССР in Chechen and Ingush, and ЧИАССР in Russian).

In 1978, these abbreviated names were replaced with the full versions: ЧЕЧЕНО-ИНГУШСКАЯ АССР in Russian, НОХЧ-ГӀАЛГӀАЙН АССР in Chechen, and НОХЧ-ГӀАЛӀАЙ АССР in Ingush.

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  Chechen-Ingush ASSR flag in 1937–1944
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  Chechen-Ingush ASSR flag in 1957–1978
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  Chechen-Ingush ASSR flag in 1978–1991

Post-Soviet era flags

Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Several flags have been used by the supporters of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. The most common of these is the green flag with the red and white stripes depicted on the right. Its proportions are approximately 7:11. The color scheme is green, white, red, white, green, with the upper two thirds of the flag in green and the remaining one third in white, red, white and green stripes of equal width. Another well known example is similar to this flag but has the country's coat of arms incorporated into the design. Each color is meant to sympbolize an aspect of the Chechen national character. Green is the color of life, red symbolizes the blood shed in the struggle for freedom and white represents the road to a bright future.^[1] These flags were mainly used by supporters of Dzhokhar Dudayev, Aslan Maskhadov and their successors. Apart from these several other designs have been used by different factions of the independentist movement, and even single sides used different flags at the same time.

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  National Flag of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria without Coat of Arms
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  National Flag of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria with Coat of Arms
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  Coat of Arms of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Pro-Russian Chechen Flag

Loyalist opposition

The pro-Moscow opposition of Dudayev used a flag of similar design with the main difference being the inversion of the red and white stripes and their different width-ratio. Its proportions are reported to be 7:11 and it consists of 5 horizontal stripes: green, red, white, red and green, the width ratio of which is 4:1:1:1:1.^[2] It has not been used since it was replaced by the current flag of the Chechen Republic.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flags of Chechnya.

• Flags of the World: Chechenia