[T]here are hotels in Kertch, the keepers of which bring over a band of musicians, singing men and singing women, especially the latter, every year for the amusement of [ship] masters, who, […] lavishly distribute bottles of champagne, and other delicacies, to these minstreling angels—women, and pay away their roubles as if they were coppers.

Hey, where’d everybody go? Why’d they take off?

...a cross between metal, punk, goth, cyber, and rock.

What could the soothsayer foreshow that we knew not before? The future is written in the past; and if we prophesy, it is with eyes that look behind.