Paul McCartney's dream to perform on Red Square was coming true Saturday — an event President Vladimir Putin assured him couldn't have happened in Soviet times when the Beatles were deemed "propaganda of an alien ideology."
Putin welcomed the former Beatle to the Kremlin Saturday ahead of the concert in front of St. Basil's Cathedral. McCartney is visiting Russia for the first time.
Putin told McCartney that the Beatles were widely listened to in the Soviet Union despite the official disapproval of their music.
When asked about the meaning of the 1968 song "Back in the USSR," McCartney said the Soviet Union had been "a mystical land then."
"It's nice to see the reality," he said. "I always suspected that people had big hearts. Now I know that's true."