The voyage of the Russian writer, Ivan Gontcharov (1812 -1891) on the frigate Pallada from 1852 to 1855 was a journey of symbolic importance. The author came from a wealthy background, working as a merchant in the family grain business; yet, disillusioned with this, he joined the Pallada and set off on a journey that took him to England, Africa, Japan, and then overland back to Russia.

Owing to the conflicts, the number of clandestine excavations have increased in Afghanistan and Pakistan leading to major discoveries of treasures. One of the largest finds was a colossal amount of Greco-Bactrian, Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian and Kushan coins, including one find that, altogether, weighed three tonnes and included 450,000 gold and bronze pieces.

Persian and Arab sailors were the first to venture into the open sea outside the view of the coast. As a result, they had to elaborate universal systems of navigation based on the positions of the stars. According to literary sources, Chinese pilots had sailed into the open sea on their way to the Malay Peninsula by the 7^th century. By the 15^th century, they used similar navigation systems to their Persian and Arab predecessors.

IMPACT OF THE SILK ROADS HISTORY ON TODAY ECONOMY AND CULTURE IN OMAN

After Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese occupation of Oman’s ports and aggressive dominance of the Indian Ocean trade brought poverty where there had once been prosperity, putting the seal on an extended era when Oman’s cities were marked by sophistication and culture, by thriving marketplaces, great libraries and splendid mosques.

The International Institute for Central Asian Studies (IICAS) was established in August 1995 in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) as a direct outcome of the UNESCO Silk Roads Expeditions.

In 1967 Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad, was authorized by Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan, to establish a Centre for the Study of the Civilizations of Central Asia in order to cooperate with UNESCO as a participating member representing Pakistan in its program on Central Asia. In UNESCO there was proposal to expand the scope of the centre and make a comparative study of the civilizations of whole of Asia.

Institute of the Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences was founded as the  Asiatic  Museum  of  the  Russian Academy of Sciences on 11 November 1818.  Later on June 2007, the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences ordered to reorganize the Saint Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies into the independent Institute of Oriental Manuscripts.

At the initiative of UNESCO and with the support of its former Director General, Mr Federico Mayor (1987-1999), the International Institute for the Study of Nomadic Civilizations was established by an agreement concluded on 16 September 1998 between the governments of Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Mongolia and Turkey.