The flag, a tricolour 1.85 × 1.90 m in size, was sewed from thin silk cloth and has the pan-Slavic colours (red, white, blue). Icons of the Holy Mother of God and Cyril and Methodius were drawn on it in a golden cross by the Saint Petersburg artist Nikolay Simakov. It has a silver point designed by Graf Rochefort. The flag, originally intended for the rebels of the April Uprising, was handed to the Bulgarians near Ploie?ti on 18 May, having been transported through Chi?in?u, where it was on 1 May. A delegation from the city of Samara, headed by Efim Kozhevnikov and Pyotr Alabin, handed the Samara flag to the volunteers in a special ceremony, with the flag being nailed using gold nails to its pole. The last nail was nailed by the old voyvoda Tseko Petkov, a leader of a band in the Troyan part of the Balkan Mountains for 30 years, who, with his fur cap taken off and with his eyes fixed at the sky, exclaimed:
