The symbols of the Royal Family.

The coat of arms.

	Before 1826 the Romanovs didn't have their own coat of arms. They used as the symbol of the royal family the national emblem of the Russian Empire - the double headed Eagle.
	The first attempt to design the coat of arms for the royal family was made by the Emperor Nicholas the First. You can see the result on the left.
	The official coat of arms was made later, in 1856, by the first head of the Heraldry Department Bernhard Karl Freiherr von Koehne. The coat of arms was designed on the base of Nikita Romanov's flag . The description of the emblem: there is a gryffon on the silver field holding the golden sword and the buckler with the eagle on it. There is black border with eight lions' heads along the edges of the coat of arms. Four of them are golden, the others four - silver.
	Nikita Romanov's military flag.The base for the coat of arms (see above).
	Here is the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov coat of arms. The united House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov ruled on the Russian throne since the second half of the 18th century.

The flag.

The Romanov dynasty flag had three stripes: black, yellow and white. It was the official flag of the Russian Empire from 1858 to 1883. Black colour symbolized stability and the strong principles of the Russian folk. Yellow standed for the Orthodox religion and the reliability of the Russians. White was the colour of St. George the Victorious. For many years two flags were used in Russia simultaneously: in black yellow and white and in white blue and red. In 1883 the white-blue-and-red banner was declared the national flag, and the-black-yellow-and-white one was used as the flag of the Royal family.

The anthem.