The concept for the identity is in the story of Tsar Peter the Great. Peter the Great was the first Russian tsar who travelled outside the Russian empire. One of his travels brought him to Zaandam, near Amsterdam. He picked up a Dutch flag, reshuffled the stripes and created the Russian flag. This explains the fact that the flags are almost the same. Cutting and pasting the colour planes: red, blue and white is the base for all visual communication.