Coat of arms of cities with signed names. Animals and birds are symbols of cities. Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk region

Everyone knows the coat of arms and flag of our vast country. But difficulties may arise with regional emblems, because they are different for each region. We have collected the most unusual ones that may surprise you. And so that there are no questions left, let’s decipher the meaning.

Russian bear breaks the atom. However, the authorities decided that they could show the fusion of nature, strength and thought.

If this coat of arms belonged to some Arab city, then no questions would arise. But the meaning is simple - the city has a lot of goods, and it itself is open to trade, on which it depends.

Elephant under the scorching sun. However, the Yakuts have their own idea about these animals, and it is not for nothing that their images are often found in this region.

It was near this city that the most martens were found. And their wool used to be used to even pay taxes.

This symbol arose from a misunderstanding of history. Previously, tigers were called “babr” in the region. But contemporaries decided that we were talking about a beaver - and they depicted him with a sable in his mouth. The designers had to work hard on the creation, but it still turned out to be some kind of non-existent beast.

A ram on a fire is a memory of northern sacrifices.

This is hemp, so it’s strange that the coat of arms is still valid. In the old days it was a valuable plant, but modern use They didn’t even realize it back then.

Since ancient times, residents have been engaged in soap making. A piece of this irreplaceable item for care was immortalized.

Snow and seals – that’s the whole north. However, the animal’s head is a symbol of the city’s main enterprise.

The center of metallurgy is a black triangle.

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Every city in Russia and even small towns and villages have their own distinctive sign - a coat of arms, which is a kind of painted “passport” of the territory. The word “greb” itself has Polish roots, and translated means “heritage”. Indeed, coats of arms are passed down from generation to generation and are not changed unnecessarily.
The coat of arms eloquently tells the history of the city and reveals its past. However, some coats of arms are puzzling: why exactly THIS is depicted on it? We present to your attention the most unusual and interesting, in our opinion, coats of arms of Russian cities.

Chelyabinsk

Chelyabinsk is the cast iron capital of our homeland. It would seem, what does the camel have to do with it? But it is this handsome two-humped man who is depicted on the city’s coat of arms, and this has its justification. Many centuries ago, the route of “ships of the desert” passed through Chelyabinsk, along which goods from Asia were delivered to the capital and cities of the European part of our country.

Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk region

Everyone is familiar with Malevich’s “Black Square”. But not everyone saw the Black Triangle depicted on the coat of arms of Magnitogorsk. The description of the coat of arms is very laconic: “There is a black pyramid in a silver field.” The image can be interpreted in different ways: it is the tent in which the first builders of the city lived, Magnitnaya Mountain, and a reminder that Magnitogorsk is the center of ferrous metallurgy.

Serpukhov, Moscow region

But in Serpukhov everything is much happier and more cheerful: on the coat of arms of the city there is a handsome peacock with his tail outstretched. In the 18th century, Empress Catherine ordered “all cities to have a coat of arms,” and a small questionnaire was sent to each, where it was necessary to indicate the exclusive and unique feature of the settlement. The answer came from Serpukhov: “in one monastery peacocks will be born...”. As it turned out later, a pair of these strange birds was presented to the Vysotsky Monastery as an offering, from which the entire Serpukhov peacock family descended. However, this insignificant note became the reason for the appearance of a tailed bird on the main symbol of the city.

Shuya, Ivanovo region

The first acquaintance with the Shuya coat of arms can be confusing. What is it: a brick in honor of the builders or a parallelepiped indicating geometry and correct forms? Everything is much simpler - this is a piece of ordinary soap, “meaning the glorious soap factories of the city.” But the current description of the coat of arms is much more prosaic: the piece of soap turned out to be just a “golden bar with three sides.”

Irkutsk

Many coats of arms feature animals, and all of them are easily recognizable. But what kind of animal is on the coat of arms of Irkutsk is difficult to figure out: an African-American tiger with webbed paws and a beaver tail, tightly holding a killed sable in its teeth? Initially, the coat of arms actually depicted a tiger, but it was rarely seen in those places, and the name “tiger” itself did not take root among the Siberians, and the strong striped cat was called “babr.” Over time, officials, who did not have much knowledge in the field of exotics, confused the bAbra with the beaver and “painted” the Irkutsk tiger’s hind legs and tail like a beaver, and repainted the striped skin black.

Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk region

Perhaps the cutest thing is the coat of arms of Snezhnogorsk. It depicts a somewhat cartoonish seal as a symbol of the local shipyard of the same name. On the other hand, this coat of arms is a real classic in heraldry: snowflakes directly speak about the name of the city, thereby making the coat of arms “semi-vowel”.

Epifan village, Tula region

By modern standards, the coat of arms of Epifani can be compared to prohibited propaganda: it depicts hemp. Based on the ancient description, on the coat of arms “you can see a field from which three hemp epics grow like a shield.” Naturally, our ancestors had no idea about the intoxicating properties of these “epics,” and hemp was cultivated exclusively for the production of ropes and oil.

Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk region

A bear tearing apart an atom... It sounds strong and even threatening. However, such a bear is depicted on the coat of arms of Zheleznogorsk. According to the description, it is a symbol of the unity of the forces of nature and human thought.

For the creators of coats of arms, the name of the city often serves as a “clue”. It is not difficult to guess what the coats of arms of the two cities of the Penza region of Verkhniy Lomov and Nizhny Lomov look like.

Now try to imagine for yourself what you would draw on the coat of arms of the city of Dukhovshchina, which is located in the Smolensk region? Naturally, “in an open field there is a rose bush with a pleasant spirit”!

The coat of arms is the calling card of any city, its face and, to put it modern language, barcode. Some of them are real works of art, while others sometimes look funny and unusual, but this in no way detracts from their importance for residents.

The coats of arms of Russian cities can be divided into two categories according to the method of their composition. The coats of arms of the first category originate from ancient emblems. Even in ancient times, some cities had their own emblems depicted on seals. These include large shopping centers - Novgorod and Pskov, as well as cities that were once the capitals of the principalities. This emblem served as the basis for the creation of the city coat of arms. The most ancient emblems include the emblem of Kyiv - Archangel Michael, depicted on seals back inXIIIV. The Novgorod seal of 1426 represents the ancient emblem of Novgorod - a fantastic animal with the head of a horse and the body of a lion. The second category includes coats of arms specially composed for cities that did not previously have their own emblems.

In 1672, the “Royal Titular Book” was compiled - a reference book containing a list of royal titles. It included all the emblems known at that time, if they corresponded to the territories named in the royal title. The “Tsar’s titular book” was made in only three copies, so that it did not go beyond the boundaries of the Tsar’s court and the Ambassadorial Prikaz, the main foreign policy department of Russia. The emblems included in the “Tsar’s Titular Book” were then assigned to some cities and, almost without changes, subsequently became the main figure of the coat of arms. From this book came, for example, the coat of arms of the city of Vladimir - a walking crowned lion holding a cross in its front paws.

Many cities - Rostov (emblem - deer), Ryazan ( standing man in an archer's hat, with a saber in one hand and a scabbard in the other), Vyatka (a hand emerging from a cloud with a bow loaded with an arrow, and a cross above them), Perm (a walking bear carries the Gospel with a cross on its back) and others - he also gave coats of arms "The Tsar's Titular".

The term “city coat of arms” first officially appeared in the royal decree of 1692, which ordered the production of a seal for the city of Yaroslavl with the image of the Yaroslavl coat of arms and the inscription “Seal of the city of Yaroslavl.” The tsar's decree was carried out by placing on the seal the emblem of the Yaroslavl principality: a bear standing on its hind legs holds a halberd in its right paw. The coat of arms of Yaroslavl has retained its emblem, although over the centuries artists have depicted it in different ways.

In 1722 Peter Ifounded the Heraldry Office - a special institution for drawing up coats of arms, where experienced draftsmen were gathered. “Especially for the creation of coats of arms,” the king invited an expert in heraldic science

Italian nobleman Francis Santi. The Heraldry Office was tasked with creating drawings of coats of arms, which were to be placed on city seals “to seal court cases.” Santi stated that he needed information about the cities. How can I get this information? It was decided to send a questionnaire to each city, which asked for information about the city: “How long ago and from what event or reason and from whom were those cities built, stone or wooden or earthen (we are talking about fortifications. - Note auto), and for what reasons they were named by what names...” Santi was waiting for a wide variety of information about the city. But most of all I wanted to get an answer to the question of whether the city previously had a coat of arms and, if so, what was its design or description. Almost all cities answered negatively to this last question of the survey. There is information about city coats of arms in reports from Yaroslavl, Ufa, Kazan, Kyiv, Chernigov, as well as Revel (Tallinn) and Vyborg - both of these cities had coats of arms during the period of Swedish rule.

Santi began a great job. It is reliably known about some city coats of arms that they were compiled by Count Santi. If you compare the coat of arms created by him with the description of the city that was sent to him, it will immediately become obvious that the coat of arms was drawn up according to the description. For example, in a description sent from Tula it is reported that a factory was built on the banks of the Upa River where “fusée (rifle) guns are manufactured. Note ed.) and pistol barrels and bayonet tubes." This information is reflected in the Tula coat of arms, which is a gun barrel with crossed epee blades on top and two hammers at the bottom and top. “All this shows,” as follows from the description of the coat of arms of Tula, “the note is a worthy and useful weapons factory located in this city.”

When compiling city coats of arms, Santi used a widespread technique: the name of the city was reflected in the figure of the coat of arms, creating a “talking coat of arms.” These are the coats of arms of the cities of Velikiye Luki (three large bows), Zubtsov (a wall with battlements), Arkhangelsk (an archangel with a fiery sword and shield defeats the black devil). The Count was not afraid even of the Tsar - PeterIhe himself drew the emblem of Arkhangelsk in the form of a rider on the wing of a horse piercing a dragon with a spear. But it was too reminiscent of Moscow. So Santi changed the drawing. The emblem immediately “spoke”: the archangel - Arkhangelsk.

Coats of arms of Russian cities.

Another replacement was made by the master. On the banners of the St. Petersburg regiment, against the background of a princely mantle, there was a golden flaming heart under a crown. It was a figure from the coat of arms of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, chief of the St. Petersburg regiment. Santi considered that for the capital Russian state, a sea and river port, another coat of arms would be more suitable: a golden scepter with a double-headed eagle at the top, crowned with crowns, located on two crossed anchors.

For XVIIIV. in the Heraldry Office, many talented painters worked on the creation of coats of arms, and they were supervised by people famous in Russia: for example, Vasily Adodurov, the Heraldmaster, who later became the president of the Manufactory Collegium and a senator; Prince Mikhail Shcherbatov, king of arms and major historian. From the middleXIXV. In the Department of Heraldry of the Senate, a special Arms Department was in charge of coats of arms.

The compilers of coats of arms from the Armory Chamber used a manual - the book “Symbols and Emblems” (“Symbols and Emblems”). It contained hundreds of different symbols and emblems, as well as their interpretation in several foreign and Russian languages. The book was printed in 1705 in Amsterdam by personal order of the reformer Tsar and brought to Russia. It was used by several generations of symbology lovers to compose a wide variety of emblems, including coats of arms.

The book “Symbols and Emblems” served as a source for the creation of coats of arms of such cities as Simbirsk (column under the crown), Kargopol (lamb, i.e. e. lamb, in a fire), Veliky Ustyug (the lord of the waters lying on the shore in a laurel crown pours water from jugs - a symbol of the confluence of rivers near the city), Tambov (beehive), Sevsk (rye sheaf), etc.

By order of PeterIcity ​​emblems were to be placed on the banners of army regiments stationed in cities. The military department, which was engaged in the production of banners, strictly took into account all emblems. Banners with city emblems were sent to the regiments, and their drawings were placed in special collections - “banner armorials.” Two such armorials are known: 1712 and 1729-1730. But many Russian cities, in which military units were stationed, did not yet have their own coats of arms. The Military Collegium placed an order for the drawing up of new coats of arms. After approval, these coats of arms were placed on banners and on city seals. Thus, Russian cities that did not have their own coats of arms received them from the Military Collegium. Here are some of them: Kolomna (white pillar with a crown on top, on both sides of the column there are stars), Rylsk (black boar's head), Penza (three sheaves: wheat, barley, millet), Samara (white goat on green grass).

In May 1767, Empress CatherineII,traveling along the Volga, she visited the city of Kostroma. A significant event, rare for the townspeople, was solemnly celebrated; the city gave the empress a magnificent reception. How to thank the townspeople? Having learned that the city did not have a coat of arms, the Empress ordered the Heraldry Office to immediately draw one. What should be depicted on the coat of arms? We decided to perpetuate significant event— in the coat of arms is a floating galley, similar to the one on which the Empress traveled along the Volga, with the imperial standard. CatherineIIapproved the coat of arms of Kostroma on October 24, 1767

Over the next three decades, the government granted coats of arms to many Russian cities. The creation and awarding of city coats of arms now becomes a state event, and it is associated with major administrative reforms that began in 1775. As a result of these reforms, a new administrative division of Russia arose: several provinces were united into a governorate; In addition to provincial and district ones, city government bodies were created. What place was given to the city coat of arms? Following the decree on the formation of the governorship, as a rule, there followed a special decree on coats of arms, which were assigned to each city of this governorship. All rights of the city to the coat of arms were secured by a special “Certificate of Rights and Benefits to Cities” Russian Empire", published in 1785

During the decade from 1775 to 1785, several hundred city coats of arms were drawn up and approved. This process continued throughoutXIXand even in the first yearsXXcenturies, until 1917. Hundreds of city coats of arms were drawn in the Herold Master's office. All previously drawn coats of arms were carefully collected there. When describing them, the tag “old” was usually added. Each of them was “old” in its own way, had different sources of origin: seals, images of the “Royal Titular”, military banners, etc.

New coats of arms of Russian cities were initially drawn in the same way as before: a coat of arms with an emblem on it. Later, the city coat of arms takes on a characteristic form: the coat of arms of the viceroyalty is in the upper part of the shield, the city emblem is in the lower part. This form of the Russian city coat of arms caused criticism from experts in heraldic science inXIXV. With such a design, the viceroyal (provincial) coat of arms was considered the main one, and the symbol of the city itself played a secondary role, occupying the lower (second) field, although it should have been the other way around.

In the middle XIXV. The manager of the Arms Department, Baron Köhne, proposed, in accordance with heraldic rules, to place the coat of arms of the province in a free (i.e. i.e. empty, not bearing any figure) part of the shield of the city coat of arms, to the right or left. When the city moved to a new province, the provincial coat of arms in the free part of the shield changed. Köhne introduced new attributes and decorations for city coats of arms: crowns crowning the coat of arms (imperial, Monomakh's cap, crown with three towers instead of battlements); frames made of oak leaves and order ribbons, corresponding to the status of the city.

Based on one of the first decrees Soviet power“On the monuments of the republic” a special commission was created, whose task was to “replace inscriptions, emblems, street names, coats of arms, etc. etc. new, reflecting the ideas and feelings of the revolutionary labor Russia" The decree did not affect city emblems, so city emblem creation continued after 1917, but, of course, new, proletarian symbols were used.

Since the 60s A new stage in the development of urban heraldry began in the USSR. New coats of arms were created: Russian cities that arose in Soviet period, they wanted to have their own distinctive sign, their own “calling card”. Many ancient Russian cities began to revive the coats of arms of former times.

"MK" studied the strangest coats of arms Russian regions and cities. What we didn’t find there: from a Negroid tiger to a sacrifice, an opium poppy and fragments of cellulose.

Let's start with the Chelyabinsk residents. Now the main element of the coat of arms of this region and its capital is the camel. The image of the “ship of the desert” appeared on the heraldic shield during the time of Empress Catherine the Great. The description of the coat of arms of Chelyabinsk, approved on July 6, 1782, says: “In... the lower part of the shield there is a loaded camel, as a sign that they are brought to this city with goods.” The authors meant that from ancient times a caravan route passed through this Ural city along which goods from Mongolia and China were delivered to the European part of the country. So, from a historical point of view, the existence of the Chelyabinsk “coat of arms” camel is quite logical and justified.

The same cannot be said about the “hero of animal origin” who settled on the coat of arms of the city of Serpukhov. Heraldic symbol This regional center near Moscow has been a peacock for more than 200 years! (I just want to spread the slogan among the people: “The Moscow region is the homeland of peacocks!”)

Coat of arms of Serpukhov

But how did the exotic bird of paradise “build a nest” in our northern regions, on the banks of the Oka? It turns out that when at the end of the 18th century, by order of the already mentioned Empress Catherine, a campaign began in the country to massively assign coats of arms to cities, the then chief herald of the empire, Count Francisco Santi, sent out questionnaires to all corners of the country, wanting to find out which “exclusive” was available in each city and town. “- so that it can be displayed on the coat of arms. In the response received from Serpukhov, Santi’s attention was attracted by the phrase: “in one monastery peacocks will be born...” (This meant the Vysotsky Monastery, to whose monks back in 1691 the okolnichy Mikhail Kolupaev gave a peacock and a peacock as a contribution, from which the Serpukhov peacock family began.) Such an insignificant remark in the questionnaire became the reason for the “enshrinment” of the peacock on the coat of arms of Serpukhov.

However, a peacock at least “sounds proud.” Some other settlements received much less “top” birds. For example, the city of Elabuga in Tatarstan, now famous for automobile production, 232 years ago was awarded a coat of arms on which “... in the lower part of the shield in a silver field there is a woodpecker sitting on a stump, pecking at it, for there are many birds of this kind there.”

But Irkutsk acquired an animal on its coat of arms, which in reality does not exist at all. This unique specimen is a “Negroid” tiger, equipped with webbed paws and a flat “fleshy” tail, like a beaver.

Coat of arms of Irkutsk

Where did such a mutant come from? – We read the description of the coat of arms, approved in the fall of 1790: “There is a running tiger in the silver field of the shield, and a sable in its mouth.” Well, there is nothing supernatural here, because in those ancient times, in the east of the vast Siberian province, tigers were not uncommon. However, this very name of the animal somehow did not catch on among the Siberians, and instead of it, the locals called the mighty tabby cat babr. Further development It’s easy to imagine the events: officials, far from Siberian exoticism, easily confused the local babr with the widespread “aquatic animal” - the beaver. So it turned out later, according to official documents, that the inhabitants of Irkutsk have a running beaver (!) on their coat of arms, holding a sable in its mouth. In order to somehow fit the “picture” to this awkward description, the tiger from the Irkutsk coat of arms was painted with “beaver” hind legs and tail, and the striped coloring of the skin was removed, replacing it with plain black.

Among other Russian coats of arms, equipped with images of animals, there was one very “sadistic” one. On the coat of arms of the Kargopol region Arkhangelsk region flaunts, according to the description approved in June 2004, “in an azure field there is a silver ram with golden horns, lying on golden brands; everything is engulfed in scarlet (red) flame.” That is, the process of roasting a ram is actually depicted - uncut, right in all its naturalness. The explanation for the appearance of such a “horror” on the coat of arms is that the ritual of sacrificing a ram has been widespread in the Russian North since pagan times. In some villages of the Kargopol district, “Ram Sunday” even existed before the revolution, during which peasants slaughtered a ram and sacrificed it to Elijah the Prophet.

Among hundreds of Russian city emblems, there are some whose images, in modern times, can be interpreted as prohibited propaganda.

On the coat of arms of the village (formerly a city) Epifan in the Tula region you can see the drug - hemp.

Epifan village coat of arms

According to the ancient description of the coat of arms, it represents “a shield, a silver field with black soil below, from which three hemp epics grow, showing that the surroundings of this city, among other works, abound in hemp.” It is clear that our great-grandfathers, when drawing hemp on the coat of arms of Epifani, did not even think about the narcotic properties of this “weed”. In those days, this plant was actively cultivated to obtain hemp from it for weaving strong ropes and useful hemp oil.

The same “criminal” hemp is depicted on the coat of arms of some other territories where the cultivation of hemp for economic needs flourished in the past - the Kimovsky district of the Tula region and the city of Novozybkov in the Bryansk region (in this latter case, hemp stems are depicted rolled into a green sheaf, and in 1980s, when hemp was already on the “black lists”, instead of a sheaf they began to draw a more “harmless” heraldic element - a cannon).

Another narcotic “object” also made its way into heraldry. Here is a description of the coat of arms of the city of Derbent, approved in March 1843, in what is now Dagestan: “...In the lower half of the shield, divided into two parts and having a silver field, on the right side there is an old fortress wall with a gate...; on the left side are the intertwined roots of a madder plant and several stems of poppy, tied with a golden rope, as a sign that the residents are processing madder with great success and breeding poppies to make opium (shiryak) from it.”

Coat of arms of Derbent

The opiate is also depicted on the coat of arms of the city of Karachev (present-day Bryansk region), which was approved in 1781. “...In the lower part of the shield of the coat of arms there is in a silver field a bunch of blossoming poppies tied with a golden rope, of which there are quite a few in the fields around this city they sow and trade with it.”

Some coats of arms are “equipped” with rather unexpected elements. For example, in the old (1781) description of the coat of arms of the city of Shuya (Ivanovo region) it is written: “... In the lower part of the shield there is a bar of soap in a red field, meaning the glorious soap factories located in the city.” True, in the modern version of the coat of arms, approved in 2004, this bar of soap has turned into a kind of abstract “golden bar with three visible sides - the front, facing straight, the top and the left.”

Coat of arms of the city of Shuya

By the will of the capital's kings of arms, the city of Sengilei (present-day Ulyanovsk region) received a pumpkin. In the literal sense of the word: “...At the bottom of the shield are two large pumpkins with branches in a silver field, signifying the abundance of this kind of fruit.”

Sometimes the very names of old Russian settlements became a “hint” to the creators of coats of arms. Here, for example, are two cities in the current Penza region - Verkhniy and Nizhny Lomov. Here you don’t need to strain your imagination too much - in both cases, in the city coats of arms, in their lower part, there appear “five iron crowbars placed in a star, with sharp ends up, meaning the name of this city.”

Come on, most savvy readers, guess how to illustrate the name Dukhovshchina on the coat of arms? For those who did not cope with this task, we quote a fragment from the description of the coat of arms approved in 1780 for this city in the territory of the present Smolensk region: “...In the lower part of the shield in a white field there is a rose bush producing a pleasant spirit.”

Of course, the creativity of the inventors of coats of arms “from the time of the construction of developed socialism in the country” has moved away from all this archaism. In the USSR, cities and towns received “propaganda” coats of arms – in the spirit of propaganda posters. They depicted power plants, factories, turbines, icebreakers, steel ladles, gears (well, the heraldic element was very popular!), pipes, ears of corn, hammers... On the coat of arms of the city of Bratsk, approved in 1980, where the largest pulp mill was built paper mill, among other things, even “stylized fragments” were depicted chemical formula cellulose".