How the Upphu got his elephant. (in Yekaterinburg)
(The story is not new. I’m not the author, I don’t know the source. There are duplicates on several websites with the same text and different authors. I write why. Vasilyevsky Vladislav Leonidovich - my grandfather (the kingdom of heaven).

Here is the story of how UPGU got his elephant for free.
The skeleton of the subject of this story to this day can be seen not on the third, not the fourth floor of the old building of the university, that on the street of Kuibyshev. But first I will briefly describe some of the actors.
The Gottlobep. He organized the Sverdlovsky Institute of National Economy and was its first rector.
by Vasilyevsky. Brigadier of Malaria. He was assigned unique works. If you, going to university, decided to find the smartest and most intelligent person, in your appearance most appropriate to the image of pre-revolutionary professor, you would undoubtedly choose him.

The rector of SvIHH frequently drank with the director of the then wooden circus. (By the way, when the circus burned, there was no sand in the fire sand boxes, but there were empty bottles.) So, the rector of SVINHA once again went to the director of the circus, whom he found in a depressed state and learned from the following story. Within a few minutes, he was called from the station Svepdlovsk-Soptypovochna:

Take the elephant from your system.

What kind of system? We don’t know any elephants.

How do you know! A week ago, Tepeza Durova passed here in Hovosibipsk, and she had an elephant dying. An elephant of the circus?

and yes.

Now let your system take that elephant away.

See Gotlobep – a problem in a person, suggests:

For a couple of bottles of cognac, I’ll give you this elephant.

I’ll put three, just take care of me.

Further, Gotlobepa’s path was to the Biological Faculty. With a joyful look, he told the biologists that he was ready to organize the most valuable instructional handbook for a bottle of cognac.
Biologists are skeptical of the message. Negotiations with the administration Gotlobep took on, biologists only had to confirm that it is impossible to train specialists from students from Tiglyam who have never seen an elephant without such a guide. The next on his way was the rector of URGU.

I organized an elephant for university.

Why do we need an elephant? We have nothing to feed him, and there is nowhere to keep him.

Don’t feed him, he’s dead.

Why do we need a dead elephant?! to

How Why? → Students who have never seen an elephant in their lives. You’ll be foolish, you’ll be learning. Call the biologists.

We do not have the budget for that!

What a money! The point is that it is all free!

As a result, the elephant of the circus system went on balance to the university. But the elephant is not a cat, and to move the 8-ton animal, the five-ton MAZ was low-watt, and there were no Belazs in the city, and they are not friends with tram wires. It was time to clarify that the case was in the summer, the elephant began to crack, and literally the next day came a fine - 50 rubles were deducted from the rector's salary for violating the sanitary state of the Svepdlovsk-Soptipovočna station. The rector was stuck. Fortunately, there was a tank-aptylepian school in the city, and it turned out that an elephant could be transferred to the yard of the yivepa on a tank platform.
The rental of the platform cost yivepy in 200 rubles. An elephant could no longer just be carried on a cattle burial. The money was spent and it had to be accounted for. There could no longer be any talk about the chicken, because not only the meat but also the skins were rotten. The skeleton was still to be made, and for this it was necessary to boil the elephant to separate the meat from the bones. To cook, they had to buy a huge asphalt boiler, and they cooked the elephant in the university yard for two weeks, filling all the surrounding houses with the smell of rotted meat. Finally, the bones were separated, folded into a pile in the courtyard, and an elephant assembly brigade led by Vasilyevsky was appointed. Vasilyevsky began by giving a telegram to the Lenin Library from the Main Post Office: "I need an atlas of an elephant." The vigilant telegraphists knocked where it was necessary, Vasilyevsky was bound, and the brave chequists could not believe for half a day that it was not encryption. This is the price of saving three copies on the word "anatomical". The hedopasymenion eventually clarified, and the atlas was delivered.

But during this time returned from the holidays students from Tiglyam, and, as it turned out, among them there was a rumor that ivory is in a high price. Vasilyevsky did not know about these rumors and in good faith began to collect the skeleton. After the assembly, it turned out that all the legs have different lengths and the elephant has a fairly rachitical appearance.
Here, biologists were outraged and had to look for a specialist in the collection of elephants. The specialist was found in Leningrad. He did not want to work for money for the sake of a high idea and demanded a luxury room and 50 rubles per day of travel. We had to agree, because the money for the elephant had already been spent, and it had to be accounted for at least by the skeleton. The specialist immediately discovered that 16 bones were missing, and a poster was hanged for students from Tigylim: "Student, remember that only ivory beads are in the price, so ask to return the missing bones to the yard of Yivepa, you can at night." So 7 or 9 bones returned, and what about the missing ones? The specialist said that for 400 rubles per piece he is ready to make sketches of bones, and they will be manufactured at the Sverdlovsk prosthetic plant.

The next day, the regional newspaper "On the Shift" came out with a huge headline: "Order science - early!". The article said that for the first time in the history of the world prototype construction in Sverdlovsk made such an order. For a similar prosthesis for a person, the rate is 1 week, and they commit to produce all 7 or 9 bones in a week. They made these bones for two months, and the elephant collector was all the time "going" around the restaurants.
True, it must be said, when the artificial bones were ready, he honestly and faithfully did his job: the skeleton of the elephant still stands near the reader.

When the accountant Myza Petpovna calculated all the money spent on a free elephant, she said that they could be used to organize an expedition to Africa, bring a living elephant and feed it for three years.