About 600 Moscow school graduates received awards that displayed the Serbian flag instead of the Russian flag, a city education official said on Wednesday.
The manufacturer of the commemorative tokens, known as "gold medals" in Russia, got the order of the colors on the national flag the wrong way round, reversing the white-blue-red of the Russian flag into the red-blue-white of the Serbian flag.
The children were being given the awards for outstanding performance in their studies.
Isaak Kalina, the deputy head of Moscow's education department, said the reason for the embarrassing situation was "common negligence."
Kalina said they received two boxes of medals, but only checked the contents of one of them. "We detected the flaw on June 23 and contacted the supplier immediately," he said.
He said the manufacturer assured that new medals will be ready in two weeks.
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