Photo taken on Dec. 27, 2021 shows a light installation to greet seasonal holidays in Istanbul, Turkey.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

Seagulls feed on the water of the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey, Dec. 26, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

Ports in Istanbul are seen in the picture.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

The first rays of the morning sun in the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey, on Dec. 11, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)

 
"Dear people! I love you so much. I want to be a freediving champion, and I want to see a whale," Liza Sukhinina, an 8-year-old Russian freediver, wrote about her wish for the future in a letter.

Thousands of dreams, wishes, and notes to the future written by people from Turkey and abroad were placed on Dec. 25 inside a "time capsule" at 50 meters depth in Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait.

The time capsule will be opened a century later.

Birgul Erken, a Turkish freediver who holds the world record, carried the capsule to the depths of the Bosphorus, one of the world's busiest waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea.

"We carried our wishes for a cleaner breath, a better breath, and a more quality life to the future. We drew attention to the importance of every breath (we take) and the value of every healthy breath," Erken said in an online interview with Xinhua, noting the dive was dubbed "one breath to the future" and organized by a company operating in the medicinal plant field.

The letters have been collected via the company's social media platform, carefully vacuumed, and placed in the capsule.

It is worth noting that the dive was not a comfortable one for Erken as the waters of the strait usually have diverse backstreams with some southwesterly winds on the surface and eddy waters on the coast.

"Such a dive was the first of its kind in this strait, and it was a challenge," she noted.

The diver has got prepared by making several exploratory dives with a professional team, detecting the currents and calculating the weather conditions, as well as considering the routes of the ships sailing on the strait.

Erken also put her own letter inside the capsule.

Speaking of Sukhinina's letter, Erken said it was very touching and full of hopes.

"Through the years, maybe something is going to be different in our life. Maybe the world will change. Who knows! Just enjoy the life," Sukhinina noted.

Andrey Kokin, an 11-year-old kid from Moscow, also wrote a note to herself in the future and said, "Hope you still have your pets. Don't stop playing. Travel."

"Do not let other people do any harm to whales, dolphins, and other inhabitants of the ocean," Kokin also pointed out.