Flag of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic

Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic
Use	Historical
Proportion	1:2
Adopted	3 March 1953; 71 years ago
Relinquished	16 July 1956; 68 years ago
Design	A plain red flag with the golden hammer and sickle with a red star with the blue and green stripes on the bottom
	Reverse flag side since 1953
Use	Reverse flag
Proportion	1:2
Design	A plain red flag with blue and green stripes on the bottom
	Flag from 1940 to 1953
Use	Civil and state flag, civil and state ensign
Proportion	1:2
Adopted	20 January 1947; 77 years ago

The flag of the Karelo-Finnish SSR was adopted by the Karelo-Finnish SSR on 3 March 1953. The flag's design was based on the flag of the former Soviet Union, with the additional horizontal blue (1:6 width), and green (1:5 width) bands added at the bottom. At the top of the flag near the flagpole were a golden hammer and sickle and the red star with a gold border. The green color symbolized the forest resources, and blue represented the abundance of rivers and lakes.^[1]

Color scheme

	Red	Azure	Gold	Green
RGB	`205/0/0`	`51/181/255`	`255/217/0`	`0/154/48`
Hexadecimal	`#CD0000`	`#33b5ff`	`#FFD900`	`#009a30`
CMYK	`0/100/100/20`	`80/29/0/0`	`0/15/100/0`	`85/13/100/2`

History

In 1940, the Karelo-Finnish SSR was created after the Winter War. This made Finnish the second official language of Karelia, while Karelian lost its official status. In April 1940, the flag was created, which was a red background with a gold hammer and sickle in the top-left corner, and the Latin characters Karjalais-Suomalainen SNT (Karjalais-Suomalainen Sosialistinen Neuvostotasavalta) with Карело-Финская ССР (Карело-Финская Советская Социалистическая Республика) below them in gold in a sans-serif font.^[2]

A 1947 proposal featured exactly the same design as the flag adopted in 1953 except with the abbreviations K.-S.S.N.T. and К.-Ф.С.С.Р. in gold in a sans-serif font below the gold hammer and sickle. The proposal also featured a line of black stylized trees on the blue line which would have made it stand out among SSR flags.^[3]

Proposed 1947 flag

On 13 March 1953, a new flag was adopted, it was a tricolour with a red stripe, a blue stripe, which made up 1:6 on the flag's height, and a green stripe, which made up 1:5 of the flag's height. On the red stripe, top left in the corner near the shaft there is a golden hammer and sickle and under them a red five-pointed star, framed by a golden border.^[4]

In 1956, Karelia became an autonomous republic of the RSFSR again and had to change its flag, which was adopted on 10 October 1956. The flag had a red background with a blue stripe 1:8 of the flag's length on the left, in the upper left corner of the red background a golden sickle and a hammer and above them a red five-pointed a star framed by a golden border was depicted. Under them the words Karelian ASSR were written in Russian and Finnish.^[5]