Pelhrimov, South Bohemia, Aug 3 (CTK) – A letter sent to a Prague resident from Sochi, Russia, reached the address after 28 years this spring, 22 years after the addressee’s death, and it has been put on display in the Pelhrimov-seated Museum of Records and Curiosities, its director Miroslav Marek said today.
The letter was dispatched from Sochi, a seaside resort in the former Soviet Union, on March 7, 1989. Earlier this year, it was received by Ivan Hanus, 64, whose late mother was the addressee.
“The distance between Prague and Sochi is 2,599 kilometres. The letter spent 28 years and 19 days, or 10,246 days on its way to Prague. If it were carried by a tortoise at a speed of 500 metres per hour, the delivery would take 216.5 days. If the tortoise worked for eight hours a day only, it would deliver the letter in 649 days and would thus be 15 times faster [than the post],” Marek told journalists.
He said the case has been entered in the Czech Book of Records as a letter with the record-long period of delivery.
Many years ago, Hanus’s parents met a female doctor in the Sochi spa and they became friends. On return from Russia, they regularly exchanged letters with their friend and visited each other.
The letter that reached Prague this spring was the Russian woman’s letter of congratulations on the International Women’s Day.
The Museum of Records also has another exhibit linked to the Czech Post company. It is the last telegram to be sent in the Czech Republic. It was dispatched by a student from a post office in Brno shortly before the midnight of March 31, 2010 and it read (in Czech): LAST TELEGRAM IN CZECH POST’S HISTORY IS BEING SENT TO MUSEUM OF RECORDS AND CURIOSITIES BY MARTIN JONAS.
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