In 1970 he got into trouble with the Soviet politicians because he wrote a letter to the papers saying that the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was being unfairly treated. Solzhenitsyn had written about the injustices in the Soviet Union and about life in the labour camps. Solzhenitsyn was not allowed to write any more. Rostropovich let Solzhenitsyn live in his home. The Soviet politicians were angry, so Rostropovich and his wife left the Soviet Union and lived in London, Paris and New York. The Soviet politicians said that they were no longer Soviet citizens. In Switzerland they were allowed to have Swiss passports.