Dude, That's So 80's
I did my BA in Russian Language and Literature in the late 80's, back when there was still a Soviet Union. As a result, I learned all the old Soviet forms of address, since they were what we'd be expected to know and understand if we were to go over there and actually need to communicate in the language.
In the years since, I'd been given to understand that the old Soviet forms of address, particularly "Comrade," had fallen out of address in post-Soviet Russia (which left Russians in a bit of a quandary for formal address, since their equivalents of Mr. and Mrs. had connotations of either addressing a foreigner or something from a pre-Revolutionary novel, and "Citizen" had connotations of being in trouble with officialdom, leaving them with no good form of safety when the person being addressed had no academic, military or other title, and the situation was required greater formality than forename-and-patronymic address). So imagine my surprise when I was read a news article with a transcript of a visit by Putin to a military hospital to meet with wounded soldiers, and he was being addressed as Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
Now this was a translation, and did not include the original Russian so I could check, so it's possible that the translator deliberately used the old Soviet form of address to evoke the Cold War. But it really was a bit jarring, and brought to mind the claims that Putin desires to reassemble, or at least revive, the USSR.
In the years since, I'd been given to understand that the old Soviet forms of address, particularly "Comrade," had fallen out of address in post-Soviet Russia (which left Russians in a bit of a quandary for formal address, since their equivalents of Mr. and Mrs. had connotations of either addressing a foreigner or something from a pre-Revolutionary novel, and "Citizen" had connotations of being in trouble with officialdom, leaving them with no good form of safety when the person being addressed had no academic, military or other title, and the situation was required greater formality than forename-and-patronymic address). So imagine my surprise when I was read a news article with a transcript of a visit by Putin to a military hospital to meet with wounded soldiers, and he was being addressed as Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
Now this was a translation, and did not include the original Russian so I could check, so it's possible that the translator deliberately used the old Soviet form of address to evoke the Cold War. But it really was a bit jarring, and brought to mind the claims that Putin desires to reassemble, or at least revive, the USSR.