![]() The point about Novgorod is “ideologically important” right now, as the war with Ukraine rages on. resembles the Belarusian white-red-white protest flag.references the former flag of Veliky Novgorod, a town known as the “the cradle of Russian democracy”. ![]() There are several reasons to get rid of the color red on Russia’s flag, the activists explained. ‘A rejection of authoritarianism and military expansion’ It’s just incredible how many of us had the same idea with the same rationale,” agreed the Fish Sounds account owner. The most important thing is that it takes root. I’m confident that we all came up with the flag simultaneously. And that’s the key to success,” said Kai, before noting that neither they nor Fish Sounds have any connection to the white-blue-white flag’s website, which contains a description of the new symbol in multiple languages. A lot has been done by different people, all independent of one another. There haven’t been any disputes over who really created the flag - both Kai and the Fish Sounds owner agree that the flag is a “joint creation by the people.” “A truly collective protest. Not long after, he came across Kai’s post and realized activists in other cities had already begun using the exact same flag. He then came up with the white-blue-white flag, talked to his friends about it, and posted it on Twitter. So a new symbol, it seemed to me, was really needed.” And the white ribbon (a symbol of Russia’s 2011-2012 protests) is long forgotten. The current flag, the tricolor one, is used by both the Kremlin and the opposition, and after numerous wars, sports scandals, and multiple other unpleasant events, it’s lost its credibility. “I’ve been going to street protests since 2010 - and even back then, I could tell that Russian protesters lacked a common symbol. “Back in 2019, after getting into design and heraldry, I learned that the Russian flag violates the principles of vexillology and decided we needed a new one,” the Twitter user told Meduza. (He asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.) The day before Kai posted their design, an art manager and PR specialist living in Russia suggested a white-blue-white flag on his Twitter account, Fish Sounds. It turned out that other Russians, both in Russia and abroad, had come up with similar concepts for white and blue flags. On February 28, Kai published their version of the Russian flag on Facebook: a flag “without the red, bloody stripe.” The symbol quickly spread through social media. There was a wide consensus that we need some kind of symbol.” It was clear we needed to mark ourselves as Russians against the war and not just some more people. “They were surprised, even though Berlin’s entire Russian-speaking population was in that crowd - including Belarusians and a lot of Russians. Journalists started eagerly going up to them and saying, ‘Wow, you’re Russian! You oppose the war and you’ve come out to protest!” said Kai. “I realized this when people I knew started writing on their signs that they’re Russian and they oppose the war. Initially, Kai protested with a sign that read “No to war,” but they quickly decided that Russians who opposed their state’s actions needed some kind of unifying symbol - otherwise it would seem like all Russians supported the war, and all the protesters were Ukrainian. They’ve been going to protest rallies against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since the war began in February. Kai Katonina is a 31-year-old Russian UX designer from Berlin.
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