Despite the stereotyping over here of Russians being used to the cold, the 29-year-old says that before his move to Arsenal in 2009, he had hardly ever played football in the winter before, and found the weather in England difficult to deal with.
He said: "I couldn't believe that I joined Arsenal. It was very cold, I hadn't been training for 10 days, it was hard. The training session was very long and intensive. I felt very tired afterwards.
"I didn't usually play in winter time before I came to England."