Flying High

Today's educational post is on flags! (I know, I know, you've been waiting with bated breath!)

I'm sure most of us remember Russia's flag during its Communist reign. I certainly do from all my Olympic watching. The current flag is actually Russian's original flag. It was designed by Peter the Great in the 17th century. It is a tri-colored flag of white, blue, and red, and to the best of my ability, I found no official meaning behind the 3 colors. An interesting note, however, is when Eastern European countries began to seek independence from other foreign powers in the 1800s, they also adopted these 3 colors into their flags in honor of Russia. The white, blue, and red colors became known as the Pan-Slavic colors (countries such as Czech Republic, Slovenia, Serbia, etc.) It replaced the Communist flag in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.



The Communist flag was put into play around 1923 after the Bolshevik government took power. This flag is filled with communist symbolism. The hammer and sickle is a symbol of the communist movement. Various other communist and socialist countries have adopted various themes of these on their own flags. The solid red flag represents socialism. The hammer itself symbolizes the industrial working class; the sickle the agriculture workers. The yellow star represents the 5 components of Communism: peasants, workers, army, intellectuals, youth.




Here is our region's flag: solid red with a lion carrying the hammer and sickle.



I realize today's entry might be considered by some to be a bit dry, so here's a funny--now whether it applies to Doug or me can be argued. Kennedi announced yesterday that Doug had "a lot of white fur" on his chest and then proceeded to try to count them. She doesn't count that high. So that no one thinks I'm picking on my husband, Doug has been gleefully plucking a gray hair or two from my head within the last few months. I have been privileged to have missed this hair follicle phenomenon until recently, but I'm seem to be making up for lost time now. Those are certainly wiry little suckers! An observation that I've made, which I don't understand, is that people who have been fighting the gray hair battle since their 20s are unusually happy when we "older" folks finally get ours! Yes, Kristin and Kasey, go ahead and give each other a high five!