Flag of the Russian-American Company
[1] After Imperial confirmation, the ukaz was heard in the Senate, and on 19 October 1806 was sent for execution to the main office of the Russian-American Company (RAC), and also to the Admiralty and Commerce colleges.
In order to make the State symbol unobstructed and more visible, the size of the upper (white) stripe was enlarged to cover roughly one half of the flag's height.
In August 1803 the ships for Russia's first circumnavigation of the globe sailed from Kronstadt under the command of Ivan Kruzenstern (Adam Johann von Krusenstern).
The Emperor himself granted permission for the use of the naval ensign,[6] as this mission was to carry an Imperial Ambassador to a foreign court as well as to open new markets in China to the company.
Because Kruzenstern had arrived flying the St. Andrew's ensign aboard the Nadezhda, he had to consider "changing" the Neva into a merchant vessel for purposes of trade.
Yanovsky (in office 1818–1820), writing to Kirill Timofeyevich Khlebnikov [ru], who was departing for California aboard the brig Il’mena, included instructions for the use of the company's flag in his "Secret instructions": … "On your way there and back be careful of pirates, and for this [reason], when you sight a ship at sea, try to distance yourself from it; but if it is impossible to do so, then ready the artillery and crewmen in case of warfare, approach [it], raise the flag of the Russian-American Company, and, when you see that the enemy intends to attack you, exhort the crewmen to defend fearlessly the imperially conferred flag of the RAC and not to disgrace the glory of the Russian name…"[8]The relationship between the Imperial government and the Russian-American company became an increasingly symbiotic, necessitating the design of a new commercial flag that incorporated symbols which would identify it as a State-sponsored entity.
As each flag was individually painted, presumably by one man who served in this capacity for at most, three to five years,[2] it would seem reasonable to assume that the many variations that exist in design and execution are attributable to the numerous painters employed over the company's 75-year history.
The earliest, von Langsdorf's "View of the establishment of the Russian-American Company at Norfolk Sound at Sitka" pleasingly shows the flag to be very similar to the original edict.
Another illustration of Sitka, by Nikifor Chernyshev in 1809 also shows a Company flag flying from the bastion, but has the eagle more centered on the white stripe.
Friedrich Heinrich von Kittlitz's two drawings of Sitka done in June/July 1827 show RAC flags on both bastions and ships, and in both cases the eagle appears to be centered in the white stripe, or just slightly towards the hoist.
The scroll on the flag flying from the RAC ship IMPERATOR NIKOLAI I, painted in the 1850s, also does not dip into the blue stripe, but the eagle appears to have its wings "up" rather than down as in the Bartram version.
Once again the eagle is depicted in the upper quarter, with the scroll extending into the blue stripe, but the swallow tail of the flag's fly in unknown in other versions.
A depiction of the RAC flag on a stock certificate dated 1845, issued in St. Petersburg shows another eagle with the "wings up" variation, but evidently without the scroll beneath.
