OREANDA-NEWS. A team of Swedish and Icelandic divers lifted 900 bottles of French cognac and liquor from the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The Local news publisher reports that they have been under water since the First World War.

According to the publication, on May 19, 1917 the Swedish steamship named S / S Kyros transported to Russia 50 boxes of cognac and 15 boxes of liquor from France through neutral waters. Not far from the Aland Islands in the Gulf of Bothnia the cargo vessel was stopped by the German submarine UC-58. Since alcohol was considered smuggling, the captain of S / S Kyros decided to sink the ship. The crew reached the homeland on another vessel.

In 1999, the wreckage of the ship was discovered, but due to severe damage it was too dangerous to explore it. After several years of preparation, the Swedish Ocean X Team and Icelandic iXplorer, using the ship named Deepsea Worker, lifted the bottles from the bottom of the sea.

“The importance of this event cannot be overestimated, this is not just a find of rare cognac and liquor, but also part of the history of the Russian Empire,” the representative of Ocean X Team said.

The divers lifted 600 bottles of De Haartman & Co cognac and 300 bottles of Benedictine liquor. It is known that De Haartman & Co is no longer produced now, and the liqueur trademark at the present time belongs to Bacardi Limited spirits company (a century ago Benedictine was being made by French monks).

At the moment, the divers do not know what will happen to the lifted bottles and how much they can be sold. Several bottles were sent to Sweden and Moscow for analysis.