A flag is one of the key elements of a people’s cultural code — a symbol of struggle, valor, loss, and achievement.

On June 26, the Day of the Crimean Tatar Flag is celebrated — a day to honor the symbol of Ukraine’s Indigenous people. The blue cloth with a golden taraq tamga, which is both a national emblem and the family crest of the Geray dynasty, once adorned the coins and seals of the Crimean Khanate. Since the 20th century, it has become a symbol for the entire Crimean Tatar people.

In 1926, an expedition from the Bakhchysarai Museum, including Usein Bodaninskyi, Asan Refatov, and Osman Akchokrakly, discovered approximately 400 different tamgas in the Yevpatoriia and Dzhankoi districts. These tamgas were found on gravestones, coins, rocks near pastures, and buildings.

Crimean Tatar researcher Osman Akchokrakly asserts that the homeland of the Crimean Tatar tamga is the steppe region of the peninsula, where the Nogai people lived. Among Ukraine’s Indigenous people, there is a legend that the tamga is a legacy of Genghis Khan, who, having united different tribes, assigned each a family mark.

On the coins of the khans of the Golden Horde, which were minted jointly with the Genoese in Crimea, one side bore an inscription in the Tatar language and the other in Latin. Often, the side with the Tatar inscription depicted a tamga of a particular shape resembling the tamga of the Geray dynasty. Sometimes, dots were placed around or in the center of this tamga.

The taraq tamga (translated from Crimean Tatar as «comb-tamga» or «brand») is the family emblem of the Geray dynasty, which was founded in the 15th century by the first Crimean Khan, Hacı I Geray, following Crimea’s declaration of independence from the Golden Horde.

Images of tamgas were also used on seals, as evidenced by the yarlyks of the Crimean khans. In particular, the tamga of the Geray dynasty has been preserved on the walls of the Khan’s Palace in Bakhchysarai, as well as on the diurbe of Hacı Geray in Salachyk. This suggests that tamgas were used not only as family emblems but also to mark the ownership of architectural objects belonging to a particular family or ruler.

The Crimean Tatar flag — a golden tamga on a blue background — is considered a symbol of the political awakening of the Crimean Tatar people. This is how Mufti of Crimea Noman Çelebicihan described it during the opening of the first Qurultai at the Bakhchysarai Palace in 1917, when the flag was first approved.

Just a year later, the Bolshevik authorities forcibly dissolved the Qurultai — the highest representative body of the people — and repressed hundreds of Crimean Tatars. At that time, the blue flag with the tamga was declared bourgeois-nationalist and banned.

It was not until 1991, after Ukraine gained independence and the second Qurultai was held in Simferopol, that the Crimean Tatar flag officially returned to its native land.

«The golden tamga on a blue background is not just a symbol: it embodies the distinctiveness of the Crimean Tatars as an Indigenous people, pointing to their ancient roots and sources of identity. At the same time, it is also a sign of the resilience of a people who have faced oppression repeatedly throughout the centuries,» emphasizes Aila Bakkali, representative of the World Congress of Crimean Tatars in the USA.

Today, it embodies the struggle for the right to live on one’s native land, for freedom, and for the dignity of Ukraine’s Indigenous people. This flag stands with the warriors on the front lines, in dugouts, and on battle positions. It flies from buildings on its day of honor, reminding everyone of the courage, resilience, and resistance of the Crimean Tatar people to the occupiers and their expansionist ambitions.

This post was developed by the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Ukraine.ua.