In our time, the enrollment into the KPI was not easy, and training in it - much harder. Among the recognized almost by all of the most difficult education subjects the theory of machines and mechanisms – TMM is occupied the leading place. This abbreviation was among the students another transcript - "here is my grave." Only two departments did not know about it - Radio Engineering and Cinema Engineering (later - electroacoustic): they were not this subject in their curricula.
After the war and up to half of the 50s Professor Alexander Stepanovich Korenyako read the course TMM at the mechanical department. Perhaps today librarians know what books have to give, when a student asks "Korenyak thick" or "thin Korenyak."
Professor Korenyako was a remarkable and somewhat strange man who under affected austerity and even ostentatious rudeness hid limitless kindness and sympathy for the students. Perhaps that is why there are so many tales about him, more than about the others teachers.
O.S.Korenyako lived in the forest part Svyatoshin between the third and 4th glades in a private home and therefore could keep a horse with a wonderful name Masha. At first he was getting to college riding on the mare, and later - a two-wheeled cart, when both were aged. Audience, in which the professor read his favorite subject, must overlook the place where he tied Masha. These are the facts. And now - the fables.
Tying his Masha, Korenyako then mumbled, turning to her. Students were wondering what it was. But as soon as the professor noticed that somebody tried to overhear him, he said aloud: "Well, you, Masha, post here and I'll go to teach the fools about the wheels.”
Lecturing, he kept looking out the window. And happened, addressed to someone of the students: "Here you are, in the front row, get up!" Students begin to make excuses: "And what am I to do?" Korenyako in response: "Yes, there is nothing. Go and tie Masha!" "But what about the lecture?!" "Go, go - without you I will not read." And he did not say a word until the messenger returned.
During the tests, he could someone ask the question: "Well, copied?!" The frightened student: "No, how can I do?" A Korenyako in response: "Hm, stupid, for what I was looking out the window for half an hour!"
He took exams with his assistant, the same kind, as the professor himself: none of them students do not find fault. There was one case.
The student went to the table, picked up a ticket and for a long time read the questions written in it. Both - the professor and assistant - looked at him without reacting. After a long pause the student put the ticket back into place. Then took the other. Again read it, thought and put back. And in a third time - the same. The student sighed, took a record book and turned to the door to get out. All time assistant professor and silently watched his actions. Suddenly Korenyako finally stopped him: “Wait, wait, give me the book!" He recorded in it "satisfactory" and put his signature. Then he returned to the assistant and explained: "He was looking for something!"
Boris Buzzard, a graduate of the KPI in 1959, Eugene Kovalenko, a graduate of the KPI in 1961