The coat of arms was granted to the town of

Kola KOLA (99.9 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Redlands, California, and broadcasting to the Riverside-San Bernardino-Inland Empire radio market. It is owned by the Anaheim Broadcasting Corporation and it airs a classic hits radio form ...

, as well as to other towns of

Vologda Viceroyalty Vologda Viceroyalty (russian: Волого́дское наме́стничество) was an administrative division (a '' namestnichestvo'') of the Russian Empire, which existed in 1780–1796. The seat of the Viceroyalty was located in Vologda ...

, by the , 1780 decree (

ukase In Imperial Russia, a ukase () or ukaz (russian: указ ) was a proclamation of the tsar, government, or a religious leader (patriarch) that had the force of law. "Edict" and "decree" are adequate translations using the terminology and concepts ...

) of

Catherine II , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anha ...

"On the coat of arms of Vologda Viceroyalty".''Administrative-Territorial Division of Murmansk Oblast'', pp. 20–21 The upper part of the shield depicts a hand in the red field, stretching out from a cloud and holding a golden orb with a silver sword (a coat of arms of Vologda Viceroyalty). The lower part of the shield depicts a whale—a species in hunting of which the town residents specialize. In 1780, Kola was the administrative center of

Kolsky Uyezd Kolsky Uyezd (russian: Ко́льский уе́зд) was an administrative division (an uyezd) of the Tsardom of Russia and later of the Russian Empire. History 16th–17th centuries Russian expansion to the Kola Peninsula can be traced to th ...

Arkhangelsk Oblast Arkhangelsk Oblast (russian: Арха́нгельская о́бласть, ''Arkhangelskaya oblast'') is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). It includes the Arctic Ocean, Arctic archipelagos of Franz Josef Land ...

of Vologda Viceroyalty. When Arkhangelsk Oblast was re-organized into

Arkhangelsk Viceroyalty Arkhangelsk Governorate (russian: link=no, Архангельская губерния, ''Arkhangelskaya guberniya'') was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and Russian SFSR, which existed from 1796 until 1929. ...

by Catherine II's decree on , 1784, Kolsky Uyezd became a part of it as well. Kola's coat of arms was soon modified accordingly—the coat of arms of Vologda Viceroyalty in the upper part was replaced with the coat of arms of Arkhangelsk Viceroyalty (in the golden field, an

archangel Archangels () are the second lowest rank of angel in the hierarchy of angels. The word ''archangel'' itself is usually associated with the Abrahamic religions, but beings that are very similar to archangels are found in a number of other relig ...

defeats a devil with a fiery sword and a shield). The date of this modification is unknown, but supposedly it was done in 1784.Geraldika.ru. Ю. В. Рубцов
Земельная геральдика Кольского полуострова
май 2003 г. During

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

times, the old coat of arms fell out of use. In 1965, an emblem depicting a dam of a hydro-electric power station, an Arctic fox, a cog wheel, a

spike Spike, spikes, or spiking may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Books * ''The Spike'' (novel), a novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave * ''The Spike'' (book), a nonfiction book by Damien Broderick * ''The Spike'', a starship in Peter F. Hamilto ...

, and lettering spelling "Kola" in the blue field, and a whale in a blue field in the lower part of the shield was proposed, but it had never been officially adopted. Nevertheless, a pin badge depicting this emblem was produced in the 1980s, creating a false impression that the emblem was the official coat of arms. The modern coat of arms of Kola was adopted on August 7, 1991Charter of Kola Urban Settlement, Article 4.1 and mirrors the 1781 coat of arms.The Charter of Kola states that the original coat of arms was adopted on October 2, 1781.

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