To Russia, With Love: After 24 Years, Message in a Bottle is Answered

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Message in a bottle.

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This story is so sweet, it almost sounds like it could be straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel or something. Oh, wait…

Sappy romances aside, we still can’t help but love this story. A 13-year-old Russian boy, Daniil Korotkikh, was walking along the beach with his parents when he spotted a bottle lying in the sand. Inside the old-fashioned looking bottle was a note.

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Dated 1987, the letter read, “My name is Frank, and I’m five years old. My dad and I are traveling on a ship to Denmark. If you find this letter, please write back to me, and I will write back to you.”

The note included the address of young Frank and it turned out that his parents still live at the same house in a faraway German town all these years later. Now 29, Frank Uesbeck said he didn’t even remember writing the message and was astonished to hear from Korotkikh. “At first I didn’t believe it,” he told the Associated Press.

Though they connected in one of the most old fashioned ways imaginable, the German man and the Russian boy corresponded a few weeks ago via the much more 21st-century method of video messaging. They also exchanged addresses for future letters, though we assume they’ll be relying on air mail rather than the sea. (via AP)

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