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Nizhniy Novgorod Region (Russia)

Niẑegorodskaâ oblasth

Нижегородская область

Presentation of Nizhniy Novgorod Region
No flag at Nizhniy Novgorod Region
Coat of arms
Nizhniy Novgorod city

See also:

Other sites:

http://black.inforis.nnov.su/infobase/www.exe/o/nonn/?doc=4443, Regional official website with a law about the coat of arms.
Reported by Pascal Vagnat, 01 Mar 1999
Image of the regional coat of arms, also on a book
Dov Gutterman, 17 Dec 1998

Presentation of Nizhniy Novgorod Region

(Note: You need an Unicode-aware software and font to correctely view the cyrillic text on this page. See here transliteration details).

Name (english): Nizhniy Novgorod Region • (russian): Нижегородская область | Niẑegorodskaâ oblasth
Capital (russian): Нижиний Новгород | Niẑniĭ Novgorod • (english): Nizhniy Novgorod • (former name): Gorhkiĭ | Горький (1932-199X)
Area: 76 900 km² (≅29 700 sq.mi.) • Population: 3 627 100 inhabitants in 2000
Status: Region (область | oblasth) within the Russian Federation
Federal District: Volga • Economic region: Volga-Vyatka
License plate code: 52 • Ham radio code: NN • ISO 3166-2 code: NIZ
Flag not adopted yet • Coat of arms unknown

I’d like to once again stress the point that Novgorod and Niẑniĭ Novgorod are two completely different cities, both regional capitals. Novgorod was recently renamed Velikiĭ Novgorod; and Niẑniĭ Novgorod was named Gorhkiĭ | Горький (a.k.a. Gorky) from 1932 to approx. 1992.
António Martins, 21 Feb 1999

"Niẑniĭ | Нижний" means "Lower", "Velikiĭ | Великий" means "Great".
Gvido Petersons, 22 Feb 1999

Coat of arms

image by Pascal Gross

Argent a deer sable [maybe "proper"?].
Santiago Dotor, 17 Dec 1998

It looks like Russian heraldry is very much unlike that of other European countries. It is not infrequent to find animals depicted with a very realistic approach (and colours “proper”), instead of the typical heraldical stylization and hues. Apparently also, there is a tendency to keep the general elements of a coat of arms (a certain “charge” ie. animal, object etc.) but this can vary as to position, attitude and even colour. Such is the case of the Nizhni Novgorod coat of arms. I have now seen all sorts of combinations: argent a deer sable, argent a deer gules, gules a deer or, vert a deer gules, and so on. By the way, is it a deer or rather a reindeer?
Santiago Dotor, 18 Dec 98

No flag at Nizhniy Novgorod Region

There is no law about flag on the official regional web site yet.
Michael Simakov, 01 Mar 1999

Nizhniy Novgorod
(Niẑniĭ Novgorod | Нижний Новгород, a county-status city)

Current version

image by António Martins, 24 Apr 2000

I’ve just arrived from a weekend in Nizhniy Novgorod, where I had been almost three years ago. That first time I saw the flag reported bellow, but now it seem to have disappeared, giving place to a white flag with the complete city coat of arms in full color — a vexillographic step back, in my humble opinion. I know not the legal standing of this flag, though I’m sure it stands for the city, not for the region, as the coat of arms details on this flag match those of the city and not those of the region (though both have the same heraldic charges).
António Martins, 24 Apr 2000

Previous version

image by António Martins, 23 Jun 1997

On 2:3 red the city’s coat of arms (shield only), red outlined yellow, a yellow deer. (NB: usually the coat of arms is brown on silver, only in the flag it is gold on red.) I made this image out of local observation, and drawn it from actual photos. I’m also not sure if it is the city’s or the region’s flag. I’m more inclined to suppose that it is the city’s because I saw it in early 1997, when most regions had not adopted flags yet, but I’m not really sure.
António Martins, 23 Jun 1997 and 18 Feb 1999

The coat of arms is exactly as described, but the flag is plain red with a red samnitic shield outlined yellow in the middle and on it a yellow deer.
António Martins, 17 Dec 1998