The national flag of the Russian Federation is a rectangular panel consisting of three equal horizontal bands: the upper white, the middle blue and the lower red.

The history of the flag begins at the turn of the 17-18th century, when Russia emerged as a powerful nation. The tricolor was initially raised on the first Russian warship Oryol, during the reign of Peter the Great's father Alexei Mikhailovich. The Oryol is known to have sailed for only a brief period under the new flag; as it reached Astrakhan on the Volga, members of Stepan Razin's peasant uprising burned it down.
Peter the Great is considered the author of the tricolor. On January 20, 1705 he issued an edict decreeing that every merchant ship must hoist the white blue and red flag. He made the drawing himself, and determined the order of the horizontal bands.
In 1858, Alexander II endorsed "black, gold and white colors of the Empire on the banners, flags and other embellishments to decorate the streets on solemn occasions." This flag existed until 1883, when Alexander III reverted to the Peter's design.
The three colors were each given an official interpretation. Red meant "great power," blue represented Virgin Mary standing guard over Russia, and white was the color of freedom and independence. They also implied the union of White, Minor and Greater Russias.
Following the February revolution the Provisional Government used the white-blue-red flag as the national emblem. Soviet Russia did not overnight reject Russia's tricolor. On April 8, 1918, Yakov Sverdlov, speaking before a Bolshevik faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, suggested the Red Army flag as a national Russian flag, and it became the flag of the Soviet Union for more than 70 years.
The person to propose replacing the "revolutionary" red flag with the white-blue-red was People's Deputy Viktor Yaroshenko, before the August 1991 putsch. An emergency session of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet on August 22, 1991 decreed to consider the tricolor to be Russia's official symbol. A presidential decree of December 11, 1993 approved the Statute of the National Flag of the Russian Federation, and an August 20, 1994 decree stipulated that the national flag must be permanently displayed on the buildings housing the presidential administration, federal executive bodies, other federal agencies of state authority, and regional agencies of authority (together with the flags of the regions).
At present the current and most often used (unofficial) interpretation of the colors is as follows: white means peace, purity, and perfection; blue means faith, fidelity and constancy; and red symbolizes energy, power, and the blood spilled for the Fatherland.