Belarus in the Soviet Union

Last modified: 2006-09-30 by antónio martins
Keywords: byelorussian ssr | belarus | error | hammer and sickle (yellow) | hammer and sickle (black) | star: 5 points (fimbriated) | sun: rising | coat of arms | national ornament |
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• Description of the flag
• Reverse of the flag
• Coat of arms
• Mistaken byelorussian flag

• Belarus in the Soviet Union (early flags)
• Subdivisions of the Soviet Union (list, clickable map)
• Soviet Union
• Belarus

• Image of an actual flag
  reported by Dov Gutterman, 03 Oct 2002

Description of the flag

In all sources I saw the ornament has two thin white stripes at the fly part (Soviet Encyclopedia 1962; Basov and Kurkov’s Flags of Belarus yesterday and today [bku94]). Unfortunately, I have no official Regulations. The Decree of 25, December, 1951 says:

The flag consists of two horizontal stripes. Upper stripe is red (2/3 of flag-height), lower stripe is green (1/3 of flag-height). The gold hammer and sickle and red star with gold border in left upper corner of the red stripe. The belorussian national ornament is at the hoist part (white on red background). Width of the ornament is egual to 1/9 of flag-length.

RSFSR had the only SSR flag with only non-horizontal stripes, while Byelorussia had the only one with both.
Steve Stringfellow and António Martins, 12 and 13 Mar 2000

Reverse of the flag

image by Željko Heimer and Zach Harden, 17 Jul 2001 |

No hammer, sickle and star on the reverse side.
Mark Sensen, 25 May 1997

Coat of arms

The emblem of the SSR was used until 10 December 1991, when the coat of arms with the horseman was introduced; Hesmer [hes92] does not mention the introduction date of the SSR coa. The current emblem (introduced 1995) is basically the same as the old SSR one, with only two changes.
Marcus Schmöger, 16 Sep 2001

Mistaken byelorussian flag

In the book A Day in the life of the Soviet Union which was made in 1987, there is a photo of Byelorussian schoolchildren exercizing under «The flag of the Soviet republic of Byelorussia». However, this is not the red and green flag that was adopted as the Soviet republic’s flag in 1951, nor is it the current flag of Belarus: Instead, this flag has a light green bar at the base that goes up about 1/4 the hoist.
C. C. C. P. Robert, 03 Aug 1998

It looks like a Lithuanian SSR flag. I bet that the photo was taken near the border line and the writer mixed up in which side of it he was…
António Mastins, 15 Dec 1999

Anything below this line was not added by the editor of this page.