Ustinov visited the Soviet Union often and in 1988 he flew to Leningrad for the opening of an art museum dedicated to his mother's family and housed in a building erected by one of his great-great-grandfathers. That year he was also host of a miniseries based on his book My Russia, likening the changes in Soviet society under Mikhail Gorbachev to "an abscess bursting and health returning."
Ustinov's writing was usually praised for wit, literacy and insights, but the consensus was that his work, though clever and diverting, suggested more than it accomplished. Reviewers agreed that his early plays showed great promise, but over the years they increasingly criticized his writing as that of an undisciplined jack of all trades who frittered away his talents and was at times self-indulgent and verbose. Still, the critic John Lahr hailed the spirited autobiography Dear Me as "an unusually graceful memoir whose wit bears witness to Ustinov's generosity and
seriousness."
The entertainer maintained a frenetic professional pace. Asked to explain his abhorrence of retirement, he replied, "I've always considered life to be much more of a marathon than a sprint."
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