The nations will fall. The old kingdoms. The old empires. The governments will fall. There’ll be no more progress, expansion or growth. The gypsies will take what they always took – the rubbish, the ruins, the alms. Nothing else mattered to them. Centuries of thrift and tradition. The gypsies will win. They’ll outlast us. They’ll know how to live. They’ve been practising all these years for the apocalypse.

Andrej Stasiuk, Road to Barbadag