Analysis of pneumococcal disease burden in Russia, which is a serious threat to children's and adults' health and which was underrecognized until last decade, is presented. Extrapolating data about etiologic structure of pneumonia and meningitis on published incidence figures, we can estimate the incidence of pneumococcal pneumonia in children in Russia: 490 per 100,000 for children aged 1 month - 15 years, and 1060 per 100,000 for children aged 1 month - 4 years. For complicated forms, these figures are 90 and 181 per 100,000 respectively. Mean incidence of pneumococcal meningitis is 8 per 100,000 children aged