A trip to Penllergare Valley Woods has reunited a man with his lost photos – which were found by a woman in a street in Moscow. The good Samaritan found a memory stick belonging to a visitor to the Russian capital, and viewed the images looking for clues so she could reunite the item with its owner.
She was somehow able to identify Penllergare Valley Woods from the photos, possibly from a notice in one of the pictures, and contacted Trust managers via their official Facebook page. The woman, Irina Yashutina, wrote: “Hello! Today on the street in the centre of Moscow I found a memory card with pictures that belong (according to some of them) to the citizen or someone who is frequently visiting your place. Here are some of his pictures, if there is a chance to find this guy and send him back his photos I want to use it”.
Penllergare Valley Woods managers promptly posted a photo of the man suspected of being the owner of the memory stick on their Facebook and made an appeal for him to contact them. And just days later he read the post, enabling him to make arrangements to be reunited with his memory stick.
The man, Rhys Westacott, wrote on Facebook on Sunday: “Hi. This is me. How on earth have you managed to find this? I came back from Moscow today!”
Faye Maher, of Penllergare Valley Woods, said: “The curiosity and kindness of a Russian lady combined with the power of social media was used to find the photographer here in the UK. It just goes to show the power of social media. A woman with a kind heart managed to do something to track down its rightful owner.”
“That kind of thing doesn’t happen often does it?”