Foss Student Turns Photographer, Model
Marina Petrik (nee Kotelevskaya) in her studio.
In the early and mid 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union (USSR), refugee-immigrants from the former Soviet republics began arriving in the United States. Some were political refugees, some religious. All, however, came here seeking a better life. Many Russian, Ukranian, and Moldavian immigrants chose Tacoma for their new home and students from the former USSR began finding a place at Foss. We still have a substantial Slavic-speaking population, but it was that first set of "pioneers" that paved the way for the others. One of those was Marina Kotelevskaya (now Petrik), who came to the United States with her family in 1997 and graduated from Foss with the class of 2000. Many of us at Foss remember how our Foss family changed as new members came into our community. Sometimes we wonder whatever happened to them. As for Marina, she married after she graduated, became the mother of two handsome sons, and has turned photographer-model, opening her studio with her husband, Anatoly, in 2000.