  We outline the course of affairs in the experimental and theoretical fields
of nuclear and particle physics which determined its finale, and give several
fragmentary remarks on its present state. The essay tells about events and
their participants, known from the literature, but presented here from the
perspective of a person whose 50-year labor activity, 1972--2022, proceeded at
the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, Sarov. In
order to predict the fate of particle physics and related astrophysics and
cosmology, it is useful to become aware of the facts about another branch of
physics that has already gone through its decline $\sim 30$ years ago, the
physics of nuclear weapons. These facts are important not in themselves, but as
evidence of the growing problems of science and social life, which are not only
far from a satisfactory solution, but have not even been the subject of any
serious discussion.
