It bothers me that the republican Russian Federation has a coat of arms with an escutcheon over the eagle's chest representing a non-existing monarch's primary title, and that the eagle wears crowns and bears a sceptre and orb befitting that non-existent office. It's bad enough that the eagle itself represents the continuity of the Byzantine Palaiologos bloodline, which no longer sits on the Moscow throne, because of course, it doesn't exist anymore, but then the head of the sceptre is a complete reproduction of the coat of arms, including another sceptre, so the baseless monarchist pretension is repeated fractally, forever and ever. Infinite eagles, infinite crowns, infinite sceptres.
At least the Karenskiy government had the good sense to scrap all that crap and just keep the eagle. I mean, it was ugly, but at least it was logical. The only thing the Russian Federation removed from the original Imperial arms was the blue ribbon of the Order of St. Andrew, which was probably the least problematic symbol of them all.
Kill the eagle, toss out Georgie Porgie, get a shield with the tricolour in there, put up some supporters, a brown bear from Novgorod on the left with a Roman fasces, and a Zilant from Kazan with a bunchuk on the right. Around the shield have a braided ribbon of three different colour schemes: light blue from the Order of St. Andrew, orange with three black stripes from the Order of St. George, and the Russian tricolour from the Hero of the Russian Federation, and this ribbon terminates below the shield with a giant Heroic gold star, flanked by the white cross of St. George on the right and the black eagle and saltire of St. Andrew on the left, both of which are smaller than the star. So the shield represents the Russian people themselves, upon which the state derives all its authority, the supporters represent two continents and disparate cultures coming together to synthesize Russia, and the braided ribbon and medallions represent the state itself, binding the people together in law and order. Guaranteed to impress or offend no one, instilling no emotion whatsoever - everything a national arms must be for the 21st century.
