STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A swimsuit left at a Swedish pool by Australian movie star Nicole Kidman was sold on Saturday at auction to buy cows for poor families in India.
"The swimsuit went to the highest bidder for 16,200 kronor (2,500 dollars, 1,720 euros). Thats enough to buy nine cows," the suits previous owner Zlatko Nedanovski, 32, told AFP.
Last Wednesday, a day into the week-long auction, Nedanovski said he hoped to raise enough to buy five cows, or around 9,000 kronor, as part of a project run by the Swedish aid organisation Erikshjaelpen.
"This went amazingly well," he said, acknowledging however that he would miss the suit, which has been on display in a second-hand store in the southern Swedish town of Esloev for the past five years.
"I felt it was time the bathing suit was used to help others, but it will feel a bit empty without it," he said.
Kidman, a keen swimmer, forgot the suit at a pool she had reserved for her personal use in the southwestern town of Vaenersborg during a 2002 stay in Sweden to shoot Lars von Triers "Dogville".
Pool staff found it and handed it over to a local radio station.
Nedanovski then bought the swimsuit for 5,500 kronor.
Bids for the swimsuit had come from all over the world, Nedanovski said, but it finally went to 49-year-old Bengt Olsen from Swedens film town Trollheattan, just south of Vaenersborg.
"I think its wonderful that the suit has been returned to Swedens film capital," Olsen told AFP.
"And I hope the bathing suit will raise more money for more cows for more poor Indian families," he said, explaining that he planned to charge a small fee to allow people to view the suit and use the proceeds to buy more cows.
"Ive also decided to give one cow each year to an Indian family, and I want to encourage everyone else to do the same," he said.
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