I know that. I went through it while learning Russian. Nevertheless, the spelling system is close enough that, in my experience, that is in fact the point of view held by the majority of native Russian speakers--if you hear a word and don't know how to spell it, or see a word and don't know how to pronounce it, you need to go back to school. It's not something worth holding national competition about, or an ability worth being proud of, and Russians I have known are consistently baffled by the concept of an English "spelling bee".
