A 13-year-old Russian boy found a message in a bottle on a beach and was reunited with its German author, who wrote the note 24 years ago, tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda has reported.

Daniil Korotkikh found the beer bottle earlier this month when walking on the beach near Kaliningrad and his father translated the note inside, which was dated September 7, 1987.

"When I was walking along, I spotted a bottle in the dunes and saw there was a note inside," Daniil told Russian television channel NTV.

"Only a few people are lucky enough to find a letter in a bottle."

The letter was signed by five-year-old Frank Uesbeck, who enclosed his address in Coesfeld in western Germany.

Russian journalists tracked down Mr Uesbeck, now 29, a married bank worker, who said he barely remembered sending the bottle with the note, which was written by his father and he signed in shaky letters.

"I was shocked," Mr Uesbeck told NTV television.

His parents still live at the address shown in the letter and his father showed a photograph of Frank holding the bottle, which they threw into the sea while travelling to Denmark.

"It's just incredible. Can it really be possible that the letter is still readable after so many years in the water?" Mr Uesbeck said in an interview translated into Russian.

Daniil and Mr Uesbeck were shown speaking via a video link and the Russian schoolboy showed off the letter, which he has framed.

- AFP