E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Viktor Guseinov / AP
In this Friday, March 11 photo, Daniil Korotkikh holds a bottle with a letter he found on a beach at the village of Morskoye on the Curonian Spit, 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Kaliningrad, Russia. The 13-year-old Russian, was walking with his parents on a beach when he saw something glittering lying in the sand. It was a bottle with a letter sent by German boy 24 years ago in the Baltic Sea.
As a child, I always hoped I'd find something like this. It's a remarkable story. According to AP: A 13-year-old Russian, Daniil Korotkikh, was walking with his parents on a beach when he saw something glittering lying in the sand.
"I saw that bottle and it looked interesting," Korotkikh told The Associated Press. "It looked like a German beer bottle with a ceramic plug, and there was a message inside." His father, who knows schoolboy German, translated the letter, carefully wrapped in cellophane and sealed by a medical bandage.
Viktor Guseinov / AP
The letter read: "My name is Frank, and I'm five years old. My dad and I are travelling on a ship to Denmark. If you find this letter, please write back to me, and I will write back to you." The letter, dated 1987, included an address in the town of Coesfeld. The boy in the letter, Frank Uesbeck, is now 29. His parents still live at the letter's address.
"At first I didn't believe it," Uesbeck told the AP about getting the response from Korotkikh. In fact, he barely remembered the trip at all; his father actually wrote the letter. The Russian boy and the German man met each other earlier this month via an Internet video link.
Reuters TV
A photo of a young Frank Uesbeck on board a ship, holding a bottle containing a letter shortly before he threw it into the sea, is seen in Coesfeld in this still image taken from recent video footage.
The Russian boy said he does not believe that the bottle actually spent 24 years in the sea: "It would not have survived in the water all that time," he said. He believes it had been hidden under the sand where he found it — on the Curonian Spit, a 100-kilometer (60-mile) stretch of sand in Lithuania and Russia.
In the web chat earlier this month, Uesbek gave Korotkikh his new address to write to and promised to write back when he receives his letter. "He'll definitely get another letter from me," the 29-year-old said.
Uesbeck was especially thrilled that he was able to have a positive impact on a life of a young person far away from Germany.
A 13-year-old Russian boy discovers a bottle with a message written in 1987 by a 5-year-old German boy and is able to connect online with the now 29-year-old author. TODAY.com's Dara Brown reports.
Leave a Comment:
This is a really sweet story thank you.
I always have wanted to throw a message in a bottle into the sea.
And see where it took me.
My thoughts and my prayers adrift for some communication.
Like prayers to the Almighty you never know when.
A response like this will come in.
we just can't imagine how we can appreciate our simple deeds to reach to other peoples lives..
after 24 yrs.. the thrill in one's heart is undescribable... the finder of the message and the sender connects to each other..
this news is almost a MONTH OLD?!?
yet you still read it and commented on it...
Why do people allways have to put a negative spin on such a good story, so what if the news is a month old.
27 years ago some co-workers and I launched a note in a plastic bottle into a tributary of the Eagle River, which then empties into the Colorado River, at the end of the ski season when we were employed as lift operators at Beaver Creek resort. Has anybody found our note yet? Not yet.
But I hadn't seen it before. So -- ???
So would you rather have fresh timely bad news or a month old good news. This is a great story and a break from the junk comming out of washington.
who cares! it's better than all the other crappy news out there.....Middle East this....US Gov't shutdown that.....this is great stuff!!!
A map of the areas, including bottle launch site and retrieval site, would have been a helpful illuminating addition.
A rudimentary knowledge of geography should suffice.
Snarky!
Alas, Americans are no longer taught geography, rudimentary or otherwise. I'm not sure what kids are taught anymore, but geography hasn't been taught in years. How sad.
@ rainlady2
That's odd. I just graduated last year....Pretty sure I took a World Geography class my sophomore year...
What is geography ?
Rainlady2- I am American and I can assure you that I was well schooled in Geography and other subjects. What a ridiculous thing to say!
@Mike S
I think you just proved her point. When I was in school, I'm in my 30's now, US and World Geography were taught in 5th and 6th grade. Those are basic building blocks for many other classes to follow like US and World history, various politics classes, civics and economics etc. If you weren't taught your ABCs till sophomore year then what else didn't they teach you.
Rainlady,I read a list of recent statistics about U.S. children and there basic knowledge in comparisson to other countries. And only 60% of american children in middle school could find the UNITED STATES on a world map...DUUH
Great Story regardless!
Oh, how I laugh at the ignorant people that somehow feel our school systems were better 30 or dare I say 50 years ago. The kids today are so much better educated than we ever were. And if there is anything at all that holds them back, it is us. We require a test after every teaching session to "measure" if we have taught them anything. We cram 30-40 and sometimes more children into one classroom to be managed by a single teacher. If we seem like we are falling behind the rest of the world with regards to education standards, it has nothing to do with falling behind. It has everything to do with other nations finally moving forward. If there is a single fault in our education system today it is only that there is so much more to learn today, there is no way we can cram it all into the same schedule we used 30 years ago.
They make Google for that.
Rainlady sounds either British or German... both are always snarky and always seem to have a bug up their behinds. I'd probably be snarky if my teeth were brown, too.
Happy Mike? You wrote about American children not being able to find America on a map. You mustn't have been paying attention in English class because your word usage, punctuation and spelling have a lot to be desired. If you are going to state criticisms about American children, maybe you should be able to at least spell correctly when you do.
I beg to differ there RainLady. Maybe its the kids that are not paying attention in Geography class or the parents who should be more involved with what their children are learning.
I personally love Geography and my children enjoy it as well. So to say that Geography hasn't been taught in years is a bogus statement. I know for a fact they are being taught cause I have seen the homework!
Go sit in a classroom with your children or grandchildren if your that sad about Geography not being taught in the classroom. Or better yet, how about you share your knowledge of World Geography to your kids. Oh wait, that would require involvement from.......... YOU.
This is a wonderful story and it is a relief to see pleasant news rather then the crap we read daily.
Not only was I taught U.S. Geography in the 4th grade, I was taught World Geography in the 7th Grade and then we referenced the same geography whilst studying World History in the 9th Grade. AND all through elementary school and into half of my Junior high years, I watched " Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego" :)
That is so cool! I admit... if it was from the FUTURE I would be more excited. lol jk good story.
Ok, that story was pretty cool. I mean, who as a kid hasn't thrown a message in a bottle, especially if you live near the coast like i do! But to find something a few years old is rare.....25 years is amazing!
Nice idea Swarles ... I will have to see if my grandchildren are interested.
The best thing to do is get there class or school involved. Then the odds are better that someone will get results. The story is good for all the kids.
Litterer !
; )
Wow, I wonder what happens to all the letters in bottles never discovered. I threw one in the ocean near Jamaica WI, Monetgo Bay in 1960 with two sixpence coins and a note that promises to pay 20 pounds if returned. I suspect the metal cap may have deteriorated and leaked, sunk to the bottom for sure would be my guess.
I will have to consider doing it again.
Very COOL story....Its nice to read a story like this......I'm glad it surfaced in the mix of all the other wasted stories and news that is posted.
I'm with you Steve - NICE story amongst all of the other negative and tragic news which always seems to abound.... this is just down to earth and sweet! :)
The past connects with the present.
Can we still bust the German lad for littering? Last thing I want to see is 200 million glass bottles floating in the ocean with letters inside.
Actually, I encourage anyone with a sense of adventure to do exactly the same thing.
I will take my daughter out to sea this weekend, and we will put a note in a bottle and set it free.
Hopefully, someone with a sense of adventure will retrieve it!
Better not buy and use bottled water, then. Where do you think those bottles go. For Pete's sake.
You'll have to hope the people the boat trailing you don't pick it up. That would kind of ruin the adventure. :)
This is such a great story. I love it... So much nicer than the negative stories everywhere else.
I read about this story two weeks ago on Yahoo. Slow news day I guess on MSNBC.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110330/od_afp/russiagermanypeopleoffbeat
Was last week my mistake.
It is SOOO good to learn that you heard this story last week!! Wow!!
awwww, how refreshing to read something happy...i need to see if my kids want to do something like that.
Do it.
sehr schoen!
Hey, Mo
Please let me in on what sehr schoen means in English. The sound of it makes me think it is something quite positive.
I don't know any Arabic (tho sehr schoen seems kind of Germanic) but when I was younger I read a lot of Khalil Gibran in English which was very comforting.
"Sehr schoen" literally "very fine"
@IKnowThatIDontKnow, Sehr Schoen means "Very Nice." (German) credit http:// translate.google.com/
When I was a child, I released a red helium balloon with letter in a baggie from a school in Minneapolis. A man from Madison, Wisconsin found it while walking through the woods. I think about the balloon flight, then falling slowly and not getting caught in trees, and landing near a path. Simply amazing. We exchanged a few letters. I was the only one in my class to get a response. Mine took about a year or little less. 24 years? Wow! I know how Frank and Daniil feel. It is a cool thing to do in life.
i dont use bottles i use cans--bhurp-burp.
I loved the story. I'm sure it was fun to find and reminded the German guy of his childhood - and the time difference - in the old days (1987), that was the old Soviet Union, now the walls have come down and they aren't downright enemies with the West anymore. Maybe in a couple decades some of our soldiers will go back and visit a more peaceful Iraq and we won't remember all the current problems.
Between nations who have been adversaries there has always been much rancor and rage, but between the people of those nations - at least after they have been able to to exist together for long enough to let time have it's effect - that hatred pretty much evaporates.
Governments do what governments do for whatever reasons governments do such things - and I suspect those reasons are largely related to preserving the status and position of those who are in government at the time - but people do what people do - live and let live.
Great story.
My first article where I didn't come across a single political rant in the comments. Yeah!
Some people have to make a negative comment about everything. I personally enjoyed
the story.
A Grolsch bottle will do nicely.
If we could but connect in this small simple way, we would all realize how alike we really are. Pass it on.
This is a great story. Perhaps children and their parents need to do more together. There is magic about this story, in that the Russian boy always wanted to find something like this. A surprise!
I found a big bottle containing a large letter with the word SOS.
The letter was signed by many people and apparently they are all Dem and Rep politicians.
"HELP. The tiny island is sinking and they are still debating which programs to cut."
It was signed by the politician who thinks Guam is not an island.
I tossed the bottle back to the sea.
I'm surprised that the editors didn't blur out the mailing address in the picture. Given that the article states that the parents still live at that address, they might not appreciate having it broadcast around the world.
Rainlady2- I am American and I can assure you I was well schooled in geography as well as other subjucts. What a ridiculous thing to say!