The 2005 Law “On the State Language of the Russian Federation” has very little effect on the syllabi of teaching the Russian language (at all levels) or implementation of the Law. Though the norms of the Russian literary language set by the Law are compulsory for daily and official communication they are not fulfilled, and as a result the Law does not work. The article discusses both linguistic and “psychological” reasons for the legally impotent Law and substantiates the importance of teaching the basics of the Law under the contemporary socio-cultural conditions as well as expresses an opinion about the possibility of including a number of problematic issues of the state language theory in the courses of sociolinguistics and speech culture.