Have you ever wondered why three crowns are depicted on the Russian coat of arms at once, if there are only two eagle heads on which they can be placed? A pair of crowns lies on them, while the third hangs between two crowns and two heads in the air. Obviously, there is some kind of symbolism in this. There is only one question: which one? Very rarely, something is depicted on state paraphernalia for no reason.
In order to explain the number of crowns on the modern coat of arms of the Russian Federation, one will have to plunge into the darkness of centuries. But first, you should carefully read the full title of the last Russian tsar - Nicholas II. It is easy to guess that it consists mostly of a listing of certain lands, including entire kingdoms (in fact, empires in the European tradition).
It was in the year 1453 from the birth of Christ, when the troops of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Mehmed II the conqueror approached the walls of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and laid siege to it. The city fell, and with it the true Roman Empire finally ceased to exist. In 1497, the Russian Tsar Ivan III Vasilyevich will make the country's coat of arms a two-headed eagle with three crowns, essentially copying the coat of arms of the Byzantine Empire. Ivan III will do this due to the fact that he will become a direct relative of the Byzantine kings, being married to Sophia Palaeologus, the heiress of the Emperor of Constantinople. During the reign of his son, Vasily III, two crowns will appear on the coat of arms, and Moscow will be called the third Rome.
At the same time, not a single piece of evidence has come down to us about what the crowns meant at that time. Further, the appearance of the Russian coat of arms will change several times. The crowns on the heads of the eagles will be screwed down and then reduced in number. Under Ivan the Terrible, there will be two, three crowns, and then there will be one big one. During the reign of Boris Godunov and False Dmitry, there will be two or three crowns. And here we need to make a small "lyrical digression".
So, the crown is one of the attributes of the power of the monarch, along with the scepter and throne. Power over what? First of all, on some territory. During the coronation, the future monarch receives the crown, and with it the lands inherited from the crown. However, lands can be captured by military force, annexed by diplomacy or dynastic marriage. In this case, from the point of view of medieval jurisprudence, the crown should, as it were, pass from one ruler to another. The new owner must be crowned again on new lands. Therefore, first of all, the crown is not just a symbol of power, but a symbol of power over some lands.
Thus, crowns in the Russian coat of arms also meant power over some territory. The only question is how the individual monarch felt about it. Officially and finally, the three crowns on the coat of arms will be fixed under the first Russian tsar from the distance of the Romanovs - Mikhail Fedorovich. At the same time, not a single recorded explanation of the number of crowns in the Russian coat of arms is not available until the reign of the second Russian tsar from the Romanov dynasty - Alexey Mikhailovich. July 4, 1667 year it was recorded that the three crowns symbolize the three Tatar khanates annexed to the Russian state: Siberian, Astrakhan, Kazanskoe. It is important to understand: these were the most significant land acquisitions of the Russian state since the time of Ancient Rus and the first Rurikovichs.
Curiously, the Astrakhan and Kazan Khanates were finally annexed to Russia by Ivan the Terrible. Kazan was taken on October 2, 1552, and Astrakhan was annexed after the capture of 1554. The situation with the Siberian Khanate was different: it was in tributary relations with Moscow. However, at the very end of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, Khan Kuchum usurped power there, after which an expeditionary detachment of Ermak Timofeevich was sent from Moscow to sort out the situation. Formally, the conquest of Siberia began in 1581, 3 years before the death of Ivan the Terrible. The final khanate will be annexed much later. Nevertheless, it was the three territorial acquisitions listed above that the Russian tsars considered the most significant for a long time. It was these acquisitions that became the basis for the Russian kingdom and the Russian Empire later. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that it was with them that Alexei Mikhailovich associated the three crowns.
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If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about why Ivan the Terrible is not on the monument "Millennium of Russia" among other rulers.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/110821/60127/
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