Latest news with #Novosibirsk
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Another Goalie Moves From NHL To KHL
Canadian goaltender Louis Domingue, 33, has signed a one-year contract with Sibir Novosibirsk, the KHL club announced on Thursday. This is Domingue's first contract to play overseas in his career. Originally from Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Que., Domingue played junior hockey for the Moncton Wildcats and Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL, and was drafted in the fifth round, 138th overall, by the Phoenix Coyotes in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. Between 2014 and 2025, Domingue played 144 NHL regular-season games and seven more in the playoffs for the Coyotes, Tampa Bay Lightning, New Jersey Devils, Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers. In the 2018-19 season with Tampa Bay, he played 26 games backing up Andrei Vasilevskiy and posted a 21-5-0 record – including a run of 11 straight wins – as the Lightning tied an NHL record with 62 regular-season wins (since broken). After playing only two regular-season games for Pittsburgh in 2021-22, injuries to Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith forced Domingue into the Penguins' starting role during the playoffs. He entered Game 1 of the first round in the second overtime period against the Rangers and played in six of seven games that series, which Pittsburgh lost. Goalie Spencer Martin Signs In KHL Canadian goaltender Spencer Martin, 30, has signed a two-year contract with CSKA Moscow, the KHL club announced on Wednesday. In each of the past two seasons, Domingue played one game and won for the Rangers, but otherwise spent the rest of the time in the AHL. Domingue becomes the third goalie who appeared in the NHL in 2024-25 to sign in the KHL this off-season, following Chris Driedger and Spencer Martin. Domingue joins a Sibir team that finished seventh in the KHL's Eastern Conference last season and was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The team also includes former NHL forwards Scott Wilson and Nikita Soshnikov and 27-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Vladislav Kara. Photo © Eric Canha-Imagn Images. Pittsburgh Stanley Cup Champion Changes KHL Teams Canadian left winger Scott Wilson, 33, has signed a two-year contract with Sibir Novosibirsk, the KHL club announced on Tuesday. It will be Wilson's fifth KHL team in five seasons.
Fox News
01-07-2025
- Fox News
'Siberian Jesus' sentenced to Russian prison after harming followers in bizarre cult
A Siberian cult leader who claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian prison camp after his conviction for physically and financially harming his followers. Sergei Torop, a former traffic policeman known to his followers as "Vissarion," meaning "he who gives new life," and two aides used psychological pressure to extract money from his followers and cause serious harm to their mental and physical health, Reuters reported. Torop, 64, set up the Church of the Last Testament in a remote part of Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region in 1991, the year the Soviet Union broke up. He was one of three men convicted Monday in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. Torop and Vladimir Vedernikov were sentenced to 12 years, and Vadim Redkin was sentenced to 11 years in a maximum-security prison camp. All three men were arrested in 2020 in a helicopter raid that involved the FSB security service, the successor agency to the Soviet KGB. A bearded self-styled mystic with long hair, Torop claimed to have been "reborn" to convey the word of God. He attracted thousands of followers, some of whom flocked to live in a settlement known as the "Abode of Dawn" or "Sun City" at a time when Russia was battling poverty and lawlessness, according to Reuters. He told his followers not to eat meat, smoke, drink alcohol or swear and to stop using money. Investigators said the men brought "moral harm" to 16 people, damage to the physical health of six people and moderate damage to another person's health. Vedernikov had also been accused of committing fraud, the RIA state news agency reported.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
I won the ‘orphan lottery' in Russia and Canada transformed my life: ‘If you hadn't been adopted, you'd be on the streets. Or dead.'
It wasn't until the lime-green S7 Airlines Airbus touched down on the sunbaked Siberian runway that it hit me, a strange, powerful feeling I couldn't shake. For the first time in my life, I felt something close to home. My story began at Baby House No. 1 in Novosibirsk, Russia, one of thousands of children left behind in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, a time when survival often meant giving up what mattered most. Yahoo News Canada presents 'My Canada," a series spotlighting Canadians — born-and-raised to brand new — sharing their views on the Canadian dream, national identity, and the triumphs and tribulations that come with life inside and outside these borders. In the early 1990s, international adoption became a growing conversation across Canada. Against all odds, I won what felt like the orphan lottery when a couple from British Columbia's Fraser Valley chose me to be their own. I was privileged to grow up on a farm in Chilliwack, surrounded by open fields, muddy boots and the kind of freedom most kids only dream about. I had a brother and sister adopted from Ukraine, and together with our cousins, we spent our days building forts in the back acreage, racing bikes down gravel paths and hiking up into the mountains to find secret lookouts perched high above the valley. I always knew I was adopted, but that knowledge carried a quiet weight. I often felt like an outsider — like I'd been plucked from one world and dropped over 8,000 kilometres away into another that didn't quite fit. Questions about my identity bubbled beneath the surface: Why was I given up? Did my 'real' family look like me? Did they ever think about me the way I thought about them? My adoptive family never shut down my questions. Instead, they listened with compassion and promised that one day, when I was ready, I could return to the place that had always whispered to a part of me they knew they couldn't reach. That day finally came when I turned 15-years-old. My father and I embarked on the long journey over to Russia on what was supposed to be a roots trip — a chance to see where I came from, to walk the streets of Novosibirsk and to visit the orphanage that once cradled my earliest days. I thought I would feel like a visitor. I was wrong. The moment the wheels touched the ground, a current of emotion surged through me. I didn't have memories of this place, but my body did. The air smelled different. The language sounded both familiar and foreign. And everywhere I looked, I saw children who could have been me — some with hopeful eyes, others already hardened by what they had seen. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Corné Van Hoepen (@cornevanhoepen) We visited the orphanage. It was quiet, timeworn and hauntingly familiar, as if the walls themselves remembered me. A caregiver named Ludmilla still knew my name. I had been known during my stay as Yura, derived from my birthname Yuri. She pointed to the small room where I used to sleep and said something I'll never forget: "You were lucky. So many never leave." That sentence lodged itself in my heart. For the first time, I truly understood what I had been given — not just a home, but a future. A chance. I saw how fragile that opportunity was, how easily my story could have been different. That trip didn't just show me where I came from; it rewired something inside me. It gave shape and meaning to the life I'd lived in Canada, filling in the blank spaces I hadn't even known were missing. My former caregiver didn't sugarcoat what my life would have looked like if I wasn't adopted. She looked me in the eye and said, matter-of-factly, 'If you hadn't been adopted, you'd be on the streets. Or dead.' The words hit harder than I expected. Not because they were cruel, but because I knew they were true. I stood there, in the building where my life had started, trying to picture the version of me who never left. The boy who aged out of the system unnoticed. Who maybe learned to survive, but never had the chance to thrive. It was a version of myself I could almost feel in the walls — a shadow life I'd narrowly escaped. I thought about my bedroom back home on the farm in Canada. A large, extended family who had embraced me with open arms. The quiet, everyday things I'd once taken for granted suddenly felt sacred. That moment cracked something open in me. Gratitude, grief, guilt — it all came rushing in at once. I realized then that my story wasn't just about where I came from. It was about what I did with the chance I'd been given. To me today, being Canadian means more than just citizenship. It means living with compassion, responsibility and a deep sense of purpose. I didn't just inherit a new country; I inherited a second chance at life. As an adoptee, I view everything I have — my education, my freedom, my family — as a gift that countless others never received. That truth fuels something in me: a drive to give back, to live meaningfully, and to make my life count not just for myself, but in honour of the life I could have lived. Canada gave me the space to become who I am, and now it's my turn to turn that privilege into purpose.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
I won the ‘orphan lottery' in Russia and Canada transformed my life: ‘If you hadn't been adopted, you'd be on the streets. Or dead.'
It wasn't until the lime-green S7 Airlines Airbus touched down on the sunbaked Siberian runway that it hit me, a strange, powerful feeling I couldn't shake. For the first time in my life, I felt something close to home. My story began at Baby House No. 1 in Novosibirsk, Russia, one of thousands of children left behind in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, a time when survival often meant giving up what mattered most. Yahoo News Canada presents 'My Canada," a series spotlighting Canadians — born-and-raised to brand new — sharing their views on the Canadian dream, national identity, and the triumphs and tribulations that come with life inside and outside these borders. In the early 1990s, international adoption became a growing conversation across Canada. Against all odds, I won what felt like the orphan lottery when a couple from British Columbia's Fraser Valley chose me to be their own. I was privileged to grow up on a farm in Chilliwack, surrounded by open fields, muddy boots and the kind of freedom most kids only dream about. I had a brother and sister adopted from Ukraine, and together with our cousins, we spent our days building forts in the back acreage, racing bikes down gravel paths and hiking up into the mountains to find secret lookouts perched high above the valley. I always knew I was adopted, but that knowledge carried a quiet weight. I often felt like an outsider — like I'd been plucked from one world and dropped over 8,000 kilometres away into another that didn't quite fit. Questions about my identity bubbled beneath the surface: Why was I given up? Did my 'real' family look like me? Did they ever think about me the way I thought about them? My adoptive family never shut down my questions. Instead, they listened with compassion and promised that one day, when I was ready, I could return to the place that had always whispered to a part of me they knew they couldn't reach. That day finally came when I turned 15-years-old. My father and I embarked on the long journey over to Russia on what was supposed to be a roots trip — a chance to see where I came from, to walk the streets of Novosibirsk and to visit the orphanage that once cradled my earliest days. I thought I would feel like a visitor. I was wrong. The moment the wheels touched the ground, a current of emotion surged through me. I didn't have memories of this place, but my body did. The air smelled different. The language sounded both familiar and foreign. And everywhere I looked, I saw children who could have been me — some with hopeful eyes, others already hardened by what they had seen. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Corné Van Hoepen (@cornevanhoepen) We visited the orphanage. It was quiet, timeworn and hauntingly familiar, as if the walls themselves remembered me. A caregiver named Ludmilla still knew my name. I had been known during my stay as Yura, derived from my birthname Yuri. She pointed to the small room where I used to sleep and said something I'll never forget: "You were lucky. So many never leave." That sentence lodged itself in my heart. For the first time, I truly understood what I had been given — not just a home, but a future. A chance. I saw how fragile that opportunity was, how easily my story could have been different. That trip didn't just show me where I came from; it rewired something inside me. It gave shape and meaning to the life I'd lived in Canada, filling in the blank spaces I hadn't even known were missing. My former caregiver didn't sugarcoat what my life would have looked like if I wasn't adopted. She looked me in the eye and said, matter-of-factly, 'If you hadn't been adopted, you'd be on the streets. Or dead.' The words hit harder than I expected. Not because they were cruel, but because I knew they were true. I stood there, in the building where my life had started, trying to picture the version of me who never left. The boy who aged out of the system unnoticed. Who maybe learned to survive, but never had the chance to thrive. It was a version of myself I could almost feel in the walls — a shadow life I'd narrowly escaped. I thought about my bedroom back home on the farm in Canada. A large, extended family who had embraced me with open arms. The quiet, everyday things I'd once taken for granted suddenly felt sacred. That moment cracked something open in me. Gratitude, grief, guilt — it all came rushing in at once. I realized then that my story wasn't just about where I came from. It was about what I did with the chance I'd been given. To me today, being Canadian means more than just citizenship. It means living with compassion, responsibility and a deep sense of purpose. I didn't just inherit a new country; I inherited a second chance at life. As an adoptee, I view everything I have — my education, my freedom, my family — as a gift that countless others never received. That truth fuels something in me: a drive to give back, to live meaningfully, and to make my life count not just for myself, but in honour of the life I could have lived. Canada gave me the space to become who I am, and now it's my turn to turn that privilege into purpose.
Reuters
30-06-2025
- Reuters
Russia jails 'Jesus of Siberia' sect leader for 12 years for harming followers
June 30 (Reuters) - A Russian sect leader who claimed he was Jesus Christ reincarnated was sentenced to 12 years in a prison camp on Monday after being convicted of harming his followers' health and financial affairs. Sergei Torop, a former traffic policeman known to his followers as 'Vissarion', set up the Church of the Last Testament in a remote but picturesque part of Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region in 1991, the year the Soviet Union broke up. A bearded self-styled mystic with long hair, he claimed to have been "reborn" to convey the word of God and attracted thousands of followers, some of whom flocked to live in a settlement known as the "Abode of Dawn" or "Sun City", at a time when Russia was battling poverty and lawlessness. Torop, 64, told his followers, who regularly intoned prayers in his honour as they looked up to his large hilltop residence, not to eat meat, not to smoke, not to drink alcohol or swear, and to stop using money. But the Investigative Committee, Russia's equivalent of the U.S. FBI, accused Torop and two aides of using psychological pressure to extract money from his followers and of causing serious harm to their mental and physical health. In a statement on Monday, a court in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk said it had convicted the three men, sentencing Torop and Vladimir Vedernikov to 12 years and Vadim Redkin to 11 years in a maximum-security prison camp. They were also ordered to pay 40 million roubles ($511,500) to compensate their victims for "moral damage". All three denied wrongdoing. Torop and the two aides were arrested in a security forces raid by helicopter in 2020 that involved the FSB security service, the successor agency to the Soviet KGB. According to the RIA state news agency, investigators said the men had caused "moral harm" to 16 people, serious damage to the physical health of six people, and moderate damage to another person's health. Vedernikov, one of the aides, had also been accused of committing fraud, RIA said. In a 2017 BBC documentary, filmmaker Simon Reeve interviewed Torop, who denied any wrongdoing. The film showed how school girls whose parents were his followers were being educated to be what a local teacher called "future brides for worthy men." ($1 = 78.1955 roubles)
