Two Steps To Success and Redemption (in Revision)

Act 1 - (1878-1907) The awakening - "The beginning of a legend"

"if hell is here, even the Devil goes hungry because here is not the law of hell, this here is the law of men"
- an unknown outlaw

Long ago, in a time now lost in the mists of history, the Russian Empire was under the rule of Tsar Alexander II.

It was the second half of the 19th century, and the old Tsaritsyn, now a name lost in the transformations of the world, still harbored the promises and ghosts of an expanding empire.

It was on June 12, 1878 that Marina Lagunova Łupków Petrova Kamińska was born, the eldest daughter of Ivan Lagunov Petrov, a hardened veteran of the recently concluded Russo-Turkish War, and Aninnka Kamińska Łupków, a Polish businesswoman with notable influence in Warsaw's commercial circles.

Marina came into the world surrounded by lineages marked by both martial rigidity and business shrewdness.

Little Marina soon became the older sister of Mikhail and Dmitri, born in 1879 and 1881, respectively.

From childhood, the three siblings were molded in the image and likeness of the family ideal: instruction in economics, mastery of foreign languages ​​including English, and the cultivation of an austere attitude towards life.

In 1888, when Marina was only ten years old, the family left the cold Russian lands behind and crossed the Atlantic, settling in vibrant New York.

The new residence was located on a tree-lined stretch of Broadway, in the neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, where the old world gave way to the promise of America.

There, Marina grew up and received her education, attending the prestigious Horace Mann School in the Morningside Heights 

She graduated in 1896, at the age of eighteen, carrying not only diplomas, but an inner flame that she still did not know existed.