Our friend and colleague Tony French, who has died aged 83, was the foremost British specialist on the geography of Russia. Tony wrote or edited five books including The Socialist City: Spatial Structure and Urban Policy (1979), with Ian Hamilton; Studies in Russian Historical Geography (1983), with his former student Jim Bater; and Plans, Pragmatism and People: The Legacy of Soviet Planning for Today's Cities (1995). He wrote many articles for journals and more than 400 entries in Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Tony's classes at University College London (UCL) and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies focused on the human geography of Russia. They were clear, challenging and flavoured with references to Russian art, literature and music. His scepticism of Soviet propaganda was expressed with characteristic courtesy. As a doctoral supervisor, he set the agenda for the next generation of Russian specialists.
He was born Richard Antony French in Arran Quay, Dublin. He studied geography at Liverpool University and, with Professor HC Darby, moved to UCL. He held a fellowship from 1950 to 1953 funded by the University Grants Committee in response to the Scarborough commission, which in 1947 had recommended the expansion of Slavonic studies in British universities. This enabled him to start his research. Russian libraries and archives were closed to western scholars during the cold war, so Tony's initial investigations were in Helsinki and Paris, where he lived with expatriate families.
Military service in the intelligence corps involved further immersion in the Russian language. In 1955 Tony was appointed lecturer at UCL, where he remained until 1994. A year on the Soviet studies programme at Harvard preceded a pioneering exchange at Moscow State University in 1959-60.
Tony was honorary secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (1986-94) during the challenging years before the merger with the Institute of British Geographers. His legacy is in the scrupulous clarity of his writings, where evidence from discussions with Russians and direct observation complemented his reading knowledge.
In retirement, Tony spent British winters in New Zealand, where his artist wife, Vivian Manthel-French, whom he married in 1993, has a home. He died after years of ill health, which he bore – with the cheery support of Vivian – with equanimity bolstered by the ambition to prove his gloomier doctors wrong.
Tony is survived by Vivian, by four children, Nicholas, Caroline, Sarah and Jonathan, from his first marriage to Ann Cox, and by his grandchildren.