A bottle in the sea of ​​a Russian sailor found 50 years later in Alaska

Washington (AFP)

An American picking up wood on a beach in Alaska found a bottle containing a message written half a century ago by a Russian sailor.

"Good morning, from the mother ship of the Far East Fleet VRXF Soulak," said the message, rolled into the bottle closed by a plastic stopper. "We wish you good health, a long life and good navigation, June 20, 1969".

Tyler Ivanoff, a school assistant living in the village of Shishmaref, Alaska, said he had to open the cork with his teeth.

"The interior was watertight, with an odor reminiscent of wine or old alcohol, the message was dry," he told Nome Nugget newspaper.

Mr. Ivanoff published on August 5 on Facebook photos of the bottle and the message, asking the help of Internet users to translate it.

A Russian television channel, Rossiya 1, then went to the sender's address in Vladivostok. His reporters then went back to a retired Soviet Navy captain, Anatoli Botsanenko, who had sailed in 1969 on the Soulak when he was 35 years old.

When observing a photograph of the message, however, Mr Botsanenko said: "It's not my writing." On the other hand, he recognized his old address in Vladivostok.

© 2019 AFP