Part of my trip and indeed my motivations for setting up the Silk Road Society was to visit and try and help raise funds for various charities that worked in the areas along my route. These charities help not only in the restoration of the Silk Road’s physical heritage, but also in the social and economic development of the people that line the route. One of the charities whose work appealed to me was that of the Scottish charity Mercy Corps. They have projects worldwide, but I found there were exceptional projects in many of the countries that I intend to visit. The headquarters in Edinburgh put me in contact with the country directors in order to set up meetings.

My first appointment was in Tuzla, Bosnia, with the country director, Marko Nisandzic. Tuzla is a rather unknown, industrial town in the north east of Bosnia just within the borders of the Bosnian Federation in the Croat and Muslim controlled part of Bosnia. The name derived from Turkish influence and means “salt city” on account of the numerous salt mines that once developed around the city. The mining of salt, by water extraction, has caused large amounts of subsidence and the town has recently moved into the chemical industry. But, as my driver warned me on the way to the Mercy Corps Headquarters, the factories are only working at a fraction of their capacity and the town is in desperate need of modernisation and renovation...

You can now read the draft report from my visit to Mercy Corps here.