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The current Coat of Arms of Russia was adopted by presidential decree on 30 November 1993 and codified by federal law on 20 December 2000. “… a gold two-headed eagle with raised extended wings set against a four-cornered red heraldic shield with rounded lower corners. Two small crowns top the eagle’s heads, with one large crown above them. The three crowns are linked by a ribbon. The eagle holds a scepter in its right claw and an orb in its left claw. The eagle bears a red shield on its breast depicting a silver horseman in a blue cape, mounted upon a silver horse and slaying a black dragon with a silver spear.”
The double-headed eagle was adopted when Ivan III, the grand prince of Moscow, married Sophia Palaiologina, niece of the last Byzantine emperor in Constantinople. The eagle with two heads had served as an emblem of the Palaiologos, the last royal dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, so it was a natural choice for Moscow princes, and later tsars, to adopt the royal symbol as well. Under Tsar Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, the function of the double-headed eagle was first put down in writing when it was officially adopted as the national coat of arms. It remained the official arms except during the period from the Revolution of 1917 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.