Mac In The USSR

Updated:07:40, Sunday May 25, 2003

Beatlemania gripped Moscow as Sir Paul McCartney staged an open-air concert in Red Square.

Russian president Vladimir Putin was in the audience as the ex-Beatle entertained in Moscow's celebrated venue with its Lenin Mausoleum.

Red in Red Square

Earlier, Mr Putin had a brief meeting with Sir Paul in the adjacent Kremlin before the star went out to face the fans.

Organisers said around 20,000 tickets had been sold but streets around the square were packed, bringing the number to nearer 130,000.

McCartney, banned in the Beatles era, was greeted in Moscow by many of the trappings of a state occasion.

"I'm very excited that after all this time of the Beatles banned in Russia that we can finally come and do this show," he said just before going on stage.

Sir Paul meets President Putin

He revealed that he had given a private performance of Let It Be when he met the 51-year-old president, adding that the former KGB colonel was a "really nice guy".

In Soviet times, the Beatles' music "was considered propaganda of an alien ideology.

"It was very popular, more than popular. It was like a breath of fresh air, like a window on the outside world," Mr Putin told his guest.

Communist and ultranationalist politicians had expressed fury at the decision to allow McCartney to hold a concert on Red Square, branding it "blasphemous."

The remains of the founder of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin, are preserved in the Red Square mausoleum and Josef Stalin is buried nearby.

McCartney was awarded an honorary doctorate on Thursday by the St Petersburg Conservatoire in Russia's former imperial capital.