My violin was born in 1696, the year Peter the Great became Tsar of Russia.  It’s seen off Napoleon, Queen Victoria, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, two world wars, and, so far, the atomic bomb.  People come, people go, violinists live, violinists die, empires rise and fall, and the violin lives on, washed from shore to shore on the tides of wealth, fortune and history. This is but a speck of time for my Strad.