Mari El

The flag of the Mari El Republic was adopted on 1 June 2011 and was designed by Andrey Sannikov. It consists of a white field with a traditional Mari ornamental pattern at the hoist and the republic’s coat of arms toward the fly. The coat of arms features a bear, with the crown representing sovereignty and the sword representing strength and power. The flag has proportions of 2:3. Earlier flags included a Soviet-era design based on the Russian SFSR flag, followed in the 1990s by a blue-white-red horizontal tricolor with a Mari cultural emblem and the name of the republic, and a revised version adopted in 2006 before the current design replaced it.