Quote: "ArnoV"The new rhombuses remind me of the rhombus decoration on the last pre-revolutionary coppers, roughly on the same position:
If you have time, can you tell us more about the reappearance of the crown on the eagle? Apparently, I missed an intriguing story.
Thanks, this is very interesting. Although these rhombuses are much more similar to traditional Slavic (and thus popular stylizations of "Old Rus") ornaments, in embroidery and such. But this may be exactly where the modern designer got his or her idea, just moved it along a bit. Another version I encountered was that these two doubled rhombuses are a cryptic way of representing the traditional Orthodox "eight-ended" cross (because they also have eight "ends"), but that seems a bit far-fetched.
As for the eagle's crowns -- sure. I am happy to oblige. Just do not forget to shut me up later, because it is a topic I can talk a lot about.
First, a very short intro into the history of Russia, its emblems/coats of arms and why they matter.
As you might know, the participation of the Russian Empire in the WWI ended really badly for it: a major political and economical crisis ensued, whole army regiments were deserting, strikes, mutinies, and civil disorders were happening all across the country. The general consensus was that the outdated autocratic system of government and the Tsar Nicolas II personally were largely responsible for the chaos. So the Tsar was forced to abdicate and a temporary Provisional Government took power .
This is known as the February Revolution of 1917. The hopes were that a number of political parties, working together in various democratic settings (first the old imperial parliament, the State Duma, which established the Provisional Government, later various workers and soldier's councils (aka "soviets") and finally the great Russian Constituent Assembly) will figure out a way to transform the country, create its new constitution, reform the government, and overcome the crisis. This, of course, never happened: just half a year later Vladimir Ulyanov (aka "Lenin") and his party of "bolsheviks" organized a clever coup d'état, hijacked the revolution, and opened a new, extremely bloody and tragic chapter in the history of Russia and its surrounding countries.
But in that brief moment between February and October 1917 a glimpse of a different, non-imperial and non-communist, capitalist, bourgeois, liberal, and republican Russia has appeared. It was trying to break with its autocratic past, but not with the general Russian historical tradition, so the usual Russian two-headed eagle was still chosen as its coat of arms. However it was stripped of all imperial regalia: the crowns, the orb, the scepter and the shields with coats of arms of various imperial domains. Also a less war-like stance was chosen, with wings lowered down, going back to the eagle of Ivan III (1440-1505, a grand prince of Moscow, famous as "the gatherer of lands" and basically the father of the later Moscow state, although nominally not the first tsar). Here is an example of the Provisional Government's eagle, you can judge for yourself how close it is to the eagle minted on the Russian rubles of 1992-2015.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Russian_coa_1917_vrem.png
Fast forward to 1991. The Soviet Union collapses due to the Russian Federation led by Yeltsin seceding from it, which starts "a parade of independencies" of all the other former republics. A ridiculous attempt of a restoration coup in August 1991 fails in just 3 days and only consolidates the power under Yeltsin. A new country is born with ideals very different from the former communist ones, and again it needs new symbols. A lot of people would like to forget the communist nightmare, they dream of pro-Western democracy and liberalism, so the natural reset point is that little period of mid-1917, when a new and free Russia could have happened (spoiler: sadly, this reset was unsuccessful yet again). At that point there was no time to deliberate long about new symbols, in particular due to an urgent need to print and mint new money, so only a slightly modified eagle of the Provisional Government of 1917 was chosen as the emblem of the newly formed Central Bank of Russia. And it appears on the coins starting from 1992 and on the bills starting from 1995.
Well, again, as you might remember, the moods shifted very quickly. Already in March 1992, when the work on legitimizing the new coat of arms started, the new eagle was criticized for its "naked" and "insufficiently state-like" appearance. This reflected a general disappointment among the general public with the new regime: the first wave of financial and economic crisis hit, but even worse -- many started to realize that they lacked a powerful national idea. So a lot of people insisted that, perhaps, the Russian Empire of 18-19th centuries is a much better reference for the new Russia than some vague democratic dream, that never happened in the first place. And by 1993, when the details of the new coat of arms were worked out, the imperial autocratic eagle was pretty much resurrected: with the 3 crowns, the scepter, the orb, and even one "domain" shield (with the coat of arms of Moscow). By the end of the same year Yeltsin "resolved" a constitutional crisis by ordering tanks to shoot at the building of insolent parliament. The new liberal Russia was stillborn for the second time in the same century.
But the eagle of the Central Bank was already there, legitimized, approved, and minted on the new shiny coinage of the new country. And, apparently, it is frowned upon to change such things very frequently, it sends wrong message about the bank, so it was left as is. Leading to a number of embarrassing and funny situations, because the further down the "strong Russia" road, the more reluctant the Russian bank authorities were to acknowledge any connection with the Provisional Government of 1917, culminating at some point (in May 2014, just as the war with Ukraine was getting started) to an absolutely ridiculous statement by the bank's spokesperson, that their eagle was in fact borrowed from "Russian fairy tales".
So in 2016 somebody came up with a great idea: without really changing the emblem of the Bank of Russia or the legislation about the Bank of Russia being the issuer of the currency, just add the words "Russian Federation" to the coins and bills, and accompany them with ITS coat of arms (which was the "proper" imperial eagle for a very long time already) rather than with the Bank's emblem. So no changes and yet a drastic change! Very much in line with the current "hybrid" policies of Russia. It was totally out of the blue: no press-releases, no official explanations. Just the usual regular announcement of issuing new coins and bills for the upcoming year 2016 -- and suddenly those who pay attention to such things discovered the new eagle! I do not think it was even mentioned in the news (although I am not following the Russian news that well to be really sure), I've seen only discussions in the social networks.
And the meaning of this change... I guess in the light of Putin showing cartoons of Russian nuclear warheads hitting Florida it is pretty obvious.