Video: 'Paul McCartney - 73 Hours in Russia {Rare Russian Documentary} 2003' (May 22, 2003, at 1:32/24:19)

(Thursday, May 22, 2003) — Paul McCartney, who ruffled the West when he wrote the Beatles’ “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” visited Russia for the first time today, 35 years after the song’s debut.

McCartney and his wife, Heather Mills, attended a ceremony at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Russia’s oldest musical institution, where the 60-year-old singer-composer was named an honorary professor.

Despite the conservatory’s high-culture aura — luminaries such as Dmitri Shostakovich studied and taught there — the audience greeted McCartney with applause as loud and long as any pop star could want.

“Your music showed that there is no music for the elite, but music for everyone,” Valentina Matvienko, President Vladimir Putin’s regional envoy, told McCartney.

“Back in the U.S.S.R.” got strong criticism for its line “You don’t know how lucky you are boy,” which many interpreted as extolling the Soviet system.

McCartney said to visit Russia was “my dream come true. I heard many stories of Russia and imagined Russian people being mysterious and cold, but now I know more.”