The article was published in the journal "Chemistry Successes" (Volume 68, No. 2, 1999) and is an expanded version of the author's report at the General Meeting of the Department of General and Technical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences and at the XVI Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry (C.). -Petersburg, 1998 . ). A. L. Buchachenko . Academician, Head of Spin Chemistry Laboratory, Institute of Chemical Physics . N. N. Semenova RAS, Head of the Department of Chemical Kinetics of the Moscow State University . Chemistry is on the verge of a new take-off; already today new ideas and directions are emerging, new trends are forming, which create a new face of 21st century chemistry. 27 pages .