This book is passionate notes of the Yaroslavl writer Konstantin Fedorovich Yakovlev about the Russian language, its troubles. The first section of the book is devoted to the most characteristic linguistic errors of young writers, the second to foreign words in Russian. The author conducts a conversation with the involvement of rich historical and literary material, compares the thoughts of modern writers about the language, argues, shows what it means to own the culture of the native language.