Flag Challenge #263: The Rus, but which Rus?
Inspired by a recent resurgence of interest in the flag of the Novgorod Republic, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is:
Design a flag for a Rus' or East Slavic state that is NOT a successor state of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Tsardom of Muscovy, Russian Empire, Soviet Union, or Russian Federation, but can be/have been a break-away state from any of these.
Submissions Close: 23:59 GMT 14th March
Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less.
Inspired by a recent resurgence of interest in the flag of the Novgorod Republic, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is:
Design a flag for a Rus' or East Slavic state that is NOT a successor state of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Tsardom of Muscovy, Russian Empire, Soviet Union, or Russian Federation, but can be/have been a break-away state from any of these.
Submissions Close: 23:59 GMT 14th March
Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less.
ONE:
Siberia-Ural
The success of Nikolai Yevgenyevich Markov's plot to save the House of Romanov marked a turning point in the Russian Civil War. Markov, an Austrophile Black Hundredist and the former head of a modest faction of 18 people in the State Duma, instantly became the leader of the entire White Movement. However, this did not help drive the Bolsheviks out of the densely populated European part of Russia, so the border between the RSFSR and Siberia ran approximately along the Ural Mountains.
TWO:
Red Ruthenia
The Peasants', Workers' and Insurgents' Free State (more commonly known as Red Ruthenia) is an only partially recognized state in Eastern Europe occupying the territory of the now defunct Ukrainian Hetmanate. Born out of the tumult of the Russian Civil War, the first iteration of the Free State was formed under the aegis of Nestor Makhno and his Revolutionary Insurgent Army. Purely anarchist at this stage, the Free State would find itself caught in a vice between the Hetmanate and Deniken's South Russian Government, both of which claimed the area. The saving grace for the Free State would come in the form of a wave of Socialist Revolutionary Party loyalists fleeing west in the wake of the breakdown of the alliance between the SRs and the Bolsheviks. United by a shared distaste for the Bolsheviks and the White forces both, the Revolutionary Insurgent Army and the SR Combat Organization would join forces to secure the boundaries of the Free State in a campaign that would see the Hetmanate dissolved and the South Russian Government driven to Crimea (where it remains to this day). Following the end of the conflict the Free State would steadfastly maintain its independence from the USSR, combining anarchism and agrarian socialism to great effect internally while maintaining a well armed and well trained populace to better fight off attempts at conquest by its neighbors. The central executive organ of the Free State is the Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents acting in concert with local legislative assemblies. Though the chair of the body was originally a purely honorary role under Makhno, Savinkov's time as Ataman would see the gradual expansion of the authority of the position. The Free State military consists of the Revolutionary Military Soviet acting in concert with a standardized network of local militias, while the Combat Organization has been nationalized as a paramilitary force. The flag of the Free State modifies the sun symbol of the Socialist Revolutionaries into a sunflower by exchanging the positions of the red and gold portions while pairing the party's shade of red with anarchist black and the hammer and sickle used during the first iteration of the Free State.
THREE:
Dalian Special Administrative Region
中華人民共和國大连市特別行政區
Специальный административный район Дальний
>be Stalin
>have brilliant idea
>occupy Dalian in 1945 after Japan surrenders
>write it in Treaty of San Francisco so we never have to leave
>after all, it was originally Russian city
>pull a Kaliningrad and expel Japanese and Chinese "collaborators"
>replace with ethnic Russians to ensure loyalty
>Dalniy ASSR becomes massive Soviet naval base and warm water port
>use as base to support CCP to win Chinese Civil War
>use as base to support DPRK to win Korean Unification War
>everyone pats me on the back for clever strategic decision
>Chinese workers start to outnumber Russians
>China and Korea write Soviet support out of official history
>other Communist countries call me imperialist hypocrite and side with China
>asian countries boycott Moscow Olympics
>ethnic riots every month between Chinese and Russians
>other separatists getting inspiration
>have to give to China under international pressure
>at least my historical legacy will live on
>China renames Stalin Road to Mao Zedong Road out of spite
feelsbadman.jpg
(IOTL, Dalian was originally founded as one of China's foreign concessions to Russia, called Dalniy ("far away"). It was later lost to the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War. After the surrender of Japan, the Soviets occupied it again from 1945 to 1955, naming a major road after Stalin. The POD is that they decide not to leave.)
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