Interview / Alexander Hleb: Surviving a communist childhood in Belarus prepared the young midfielder for Arsenal's current state of flux, writes Michael Walker

A sense of permanence frames an understanding of Arsenal. This is a club that has been in the top division of English football since 1919. But the Arsenal Alexander Hleb walked into this summer is one in flux. After 93 years, Highbury will be vacated at the end of the season, while for the first time since 1996 the dressingroom is having to cope without Patrick Vieira. Throw in two Premiership defeats, the injury to Thierry Henry and for the first time in years Arsenal look uncertain.

It has not been the easiest environment for Hleb to enter but flux is something he understands. Now 24, he left his native Minsk in Belarus at 19 for Stuttgart in the Bundesliga and the West. Before that Hleb witnessed the change of his country from Soviet republic to independent nation.

"I remember my dad buying a video recorder. I was the happiest boy in the world," Hleb said of the material benefits of the fall of the Soviet Union, though he pointed out Minsk's post-Soviet disorder too. Even though he was Arsene Wenger's sole signing this summer, Hleb is phlegmatic about what that means for him and for Arsenal. He is certain it does not mean he is a one-in, one-out replacement for Vieira.

"I don't feel that pressure. There is change here and Patrick Vieira was a great player. But the team is now much younger; half of the team on the pitch is under 23. It's going to take time to learn to work together. We are not playing badly but we need more experience of playing together."

A Russian speaker, Hleb was talking in German via an interpreter, though his English is improving with help from Jens Lehmann. His impression of Arsenal from afar was "they are a great team, like Barcelona, great technical ability and they play a beautiful game". But he has discovered at places like Chelsea and Middlesbrough others do not have the same approach.

Despite being pleasantly affected by "the sheer speed" of the game in England, Hleb has equally quickly grasped that Arsenal's philosophy under Wenger has its downsides. One consequence is that after two defeats and a 0-0 draw at West Ham last Saturday fixtures such as today's at home to Birmingham City provoke must-win anxiety.

"We do have an emphasis on the beautiful game," Hleb said. "But more and more these days other teams are playing defensively and that is making it more difficult for us. It is difficult to maintain a level of creativity when other teams are focused on defence."

Wenger is not immune to change but in recruiting a touch player like Hleb, he showed he was still keen for Arsenal to play in a certain style. "He talked a lot about the history of Arsenal, of all the things they have won in the past," Hleb said of his first meeting with Wenger. "He left an impression of the standards of the club and the team but he did not say we have to win x, y, z in the future.

"He spoke German but on the training pitch he speaks English. I understand most of it. His German is very good, better than mine. I got a really good feeling, the right feeling when I met Arsene. He has very great charisma and I knew it was the right place to go. As soon as I met him I broke off discussions with other clubs."

The £4 million Arsenal initially paid may eventually become £10 million if Hleb and the club taste success together. They are figures that were beyond the scope of the boy who spent half a childhood behind an iron curtain in Minsk. In Soviet days Hleb's mother worked on a building site and his father drove a petrol delivery truck. Stuttgart, with the highest income per capita in Germany, was a culture shock. Even amid the wealth of Stuttgart, with his younger brother Vyatcheslav, the family Hleb were sufficiently concerned about cash for the brothers to get the bus home. "Never again," Hleb said, "it took 32 hours. Next time I flew.

"I was just a normal boy in Minsk, played football in the streets. My Dad is a football fanatic. At 16 I was sent to Dynamo Minsk and then in my first year at Borisov we won the championship. Then I went to Stuttgart. It was very, very difficult settling in Stuttgart, it's much different from London - half the world lives round here and everybody is welcoming. But Stuttgart was a different atmosphere and the first two years were the most difficult of my life.

Via Hamburg, Vyatcheslav is now back at Dynamo Minsk, and Alexander sees ever more change in his home town. Not all of it is for the better. "It was much better to grow up a child in the Soviet Union because children went to school in those days. You could play on the streets. Now there is so much crime, so much poverty, children are smoking, drinking alcohol, but that's the situation in Russia and in every other former Soviet republic."

Hleb is one of life's smilers but now he was serious. He may get used to mood swings at Arsenal this season.

Guardian Service