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| | Asia Times - |
 | | Czar Alexei Mikhailovich, father of Peter the Great, is believed to have been the author of the first white-blue-and-red tricolor in 1668. |
 | | An English captain, engaged to command the first naval protection vessel in the Russian fleet, asked the czar to choose a flag, because, he told Alexei, all states have flags, and if Russia, which wasn't flying anything at the time, was a state, it had to have one. |
 | | Alexei studied the flags of other countries; picked a variation by changing the order of the colors; and hoisted it on what was then a tiny navy for the Volga River and the Caspian Sea. |
| www.atimes.com /atimes/Central_Asia/EI26Ag01.html (1100 words) |
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