The article draws attention to the actual situation of the Russian orthography. In 1980ies-1990ies the orthographic commission headed by professor V. V. Lopatin elaborated a new project of Russian orthography reform. The reform concentrated especially on correction of the "gaps" in the old orthographic system (dated back to 1956), concerned several rules of writing new expressions etc. Theses of the reform were published in 2000 (the new orthographic dictionary of Russian in 1999), but were never officially sanctioned. As a result, the old orthographic rules from 1956 are still valid for contemporary Russian.