A few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new Russian goverment carried out a reform of car license plates. Along with the country code RUS, for the first time a graphic element different from letters and numbers appeared on them — the flag of the country. Also, a numeric designation system for the regions of Russia was introduced instead of the previous letter system. Each region was assigned a corresponding number, which was now placed on the license plate. The old format X0000XX has given way to the format X000XX + region code.

It isn’t known for what reason, but those who were carrying out this reform apparently thought that the new license plates would be enough for everyone and for a long time ahead. In reality, the country’s car fleet in the new era of capitalism began to grow at a gigantic pace, and after a few years, in addition to 89 region codes, new ones (from 90 to 99) had to be added. Subsequently additional digits were added before the codes, thus expanding the number of available license plates combinations. As a result, in 2022, many regions of Russia are indicated on license plates with two or more digits at once (77, 99, 97, 177, 199, 197, 777, 799, 797 are the codes of Moscow alone).

The problem with the number of available combinations of license plates is additionally complicated by the fact that the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets have only a part of identical letters, while the rest simply will not be understood outside Russia and countries with similar alphabet. Only eleven letters are available for use on license plates.

In total, a little over 1 million combinations in the X000XX format are available for one region code. But in Moscow alone, about 4 million cars are currently registered, in St. Petersburg about 2 million. And the number of vehicles is constantly growing.

In addition to the technical problem, I also see an aesthetic one. The license plate in the current design looks outdated. The European Union has had a license plate standard since 1998, which most other countries on the continent have followed to some extent. The main characteristic of such license plates is the flag and country code on the left side, as well as large letters and numbers of the same height. Russia is also a European country and it would be logical to use the common standard.

In my opinion, the reform of the license plate system is long overdue in Russia. The current ones have not met the needs for many years, it is impossible to endlessly add numbers to the region codes, this only worsens the already outdated appearance and readability of license plates.

During the research process, I reviewed all the European license plates, and based on this I created my own vision of the required update. One of the relevant examples is the license plate of Turkey. The capital of Turkey, Istanbul, is the most populous city in Europe and it’s clear that they had the same task when developing their own license plates. As a result, Turkish license plates look like this:

However, despite the fact that such a license plate solves the problem of the lack of combinations, it does not in any way reflect the regional affiliation of the car. Or at least it’s not recognizable by the average person. The license plates of France helped me in this matter, on which the code of the department where the vehicle is registered is indicated on the right side of the plate, as well as the symbol of the region to which the department belongs.

I decided to use the combination of the French and Turkish systems when creating an updated version of the Russian license plate. Here’s what I got:

Since Russia is not currently a member of the EU and is not considering joining it, the use of a blue stripe for the country code and flag background is not justified, despite it looks aesthetically pleasing. In this regard, I decided to leave the background of the license plate white and place the country code and flag on the left side without an accompanying stripe. Six numbers and two letters give more than 100 million combinations for civilian vehicles, that is more than enough.

Leaving the region indication system in the form of codes, I decided to add the coat of arms of the region as well. This makes the appearance of the license plate more modern and aesthetically pleasing, and also allows you to quickly read the regional affiliation of the car. On the license plate used by the police, the emblem of a region is replaced by the emblem of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. In license plates for other uses, the flag and coat of arms may be omitted completely.

As a result, the new licenses plates look modern, visually appealing, and has no problem with a low number of possible combinations. Such a license plate corresponds to the existing visual standard of European countries, while having a distinctive characteristic in the form of the presence of various coats of arms of Russian regions.