The international geotechnical engineering community is deeply saddened to learn that Professor Alexander Fadeev (b. Yekaterinburg, November 1937), has passed away in Saint Petersburg on 4th April 2010. 

Professor Fadeev obtained a Mining Engineering degree from Yekaterinburg Mining Institute, and was later awarded a PhD as well as a Dr. Technical Science degree from the Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) Mining Institute. He worked until 1974 at State Mining Research Institute in Leningrad, USSR.

Since 1974 he held the post of Professor at the Department of Geotechnical Engineering at the Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) State Architectural and Civil Engineering University. In 1995 he became the scientific advisor for “Podzemstroyreconstruction”, a major construction company in Saint Petersburg, Russia. 

Professor A. Fadeev supervised 25 PhD students and 3 Dr. Technical Science students. He also supervised numerous foreign students from Syria, Japan, Jordan, Sudan, China, Vietnam, and Slovakia. 

Professor A. Fadeev wrote more than 300 papers on different topics of Soil Mechanics, Foundations Engineering, and Rock Mechanics. He is the author of the following books: The calculation of walls of tunnels by FEM (1980); FEM for geotechnical tasks and program «Geomechanics» (1982), Foundation Engineering (2002), Soil Mechanics (2005), Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering (2009). 

He was also the chief editor of the Russian translations of the widely recognized international geotechnical editions: K. Ishihara, “Soil behaviour in Earthquake Geotechnics (Saint Petersburg, 2006)”, and W.F. Van Impe and D. Verastegui Flore,” On the design, construction, and monitoring of embankments on soft soil in underwater conditions (Saint Petersburg, 2010).” 

Professor A. Fadeev was invited to deliver lectures and courses on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering in universities in the USA, Europe, China, Hong Kong, Australia, France, Poland, Austria, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

The Russian Geotechnical Society honored him with a geotechnical medal named after N. Gerservanov for major contributions to geotechnical engineering (2001) while the Kazakhstan Geotechnical Society awarded him with the international geotechnical medal named after the academic T. Zhunusov (“Distinguished Research in Geomechanics”) for the best paper related to soil-structure interaction on soft soil of Saint-Petersburg, Russia, and Almaty, Kazakhstan (2007). 

He was a member of the following societies: Russian Geotechnical Society, Kazakhstan Geotechnical Society, ISSMGE, and ISRM. He was President of Russian Society of Rock Mechanics, Chairman of the Technical Committee of Numerical Analysis by FEM of the Russian Geotechnical Society, Chairman and member of the organizing committees and scientific board of numerous international conferences, symposia, and seminars. He was the vice-chairman of the expert technical committee of Government of Saint Petersburg (Russia) and deputy member of the Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) Parliament (1990-1993). He was recognized by the Russian Government as an honoured scientific worker of the Russian Federation (under the signature of the former President of Russian Federation Vladimir Putin). 

He is survived by his wife Alexandra, three sons Petr, Pavel, and Ivan, and grandsons and granddaughters to whom we all offer our sincere condolences.