November 2023
Oranges for Christmas
“Every winter, between Mikuláš and Christmas, we’d travel to Levice, and I’d wait in line for half an hour to buy fruit—bananas, lemons, kiwis, oranges, and mandarins. They even had kakis, but I never liked them much; a bit too tomato-like for my taste. Mandarins, though, were essential for Mikuláš and Christmas.”
As we walk up the hill out of the village, the chill of late November bites at our cheeks. My grandmother shares fragments of her life in the village during communism, her voice steady against the crunch of snow beneath our boots. I’d asked her about Christmas celebrations in the past, curious about how they managed during the years when Slovakia was under the regime of the USSR.
The road climbs slightly, lined by fields that glisten with snow. My grandmother gestures to the right, to a stretch of land that was once controlled by the president of the družstvo. “He had all this land under his thumb, you know,” she recalls. “There used to be a path there, but they plowed it over to make room for more crops. Everything was about production back then. Even the vineyards on the other side of the village belonged to him.”
She reminisces about her job at the družstvo - a pig farm just on the top of the hill - where she assembled electrical motors. “It was a good job,” she says proudly. “I made as much as the men—maybe even more. That wasn’t common in those days.”
The conversation shifts as we approach the forest edge. She tells me about studying in Brno, in the Czech Republic, at sixteen. Her memories turn to the night of August 21, 1968, when the revolution began. “We were woken up by our leader in the dormitories. She shouted, ‘Wake up, girls! The Russians are in the streets. They’ve come to free us.’” She laughs at the memory.
Her family, from a town with a bridge connecting Slovakia to Austria, lost their connection to the land on the other side. “The Russians destroyed the bridge,” she says simply. “And that was the end of it.”
Back at the house, snow blankets the garden. The scent of mulled wine drifts from the suterén, the multi-purpose basement room where my grandfather rests. I step inside, greeted by my grandmother’s call. “Dominika, come have some!”
I take a small glass of warm, cinnamon-spiced wine and sit by my grandfather on his bed. Above the washing machine, pipes wrapped in foam display his insignia and medals. “Those are from my time as a soldier,” he says. “And those bolts are distinctions.” I walk closer to inspect them. “That one,” he points, “is for dobrý hraničiar.” He worked on the border with his German shepherd. “I was always hungry,” he adds, glancing at my grandmother. “Tell her about the cabbage,” she prompts him.
“I found a cabbage head buried in the snow one night. Rabbits had dug it out. I brought it back to the barracks and ate it raw,” he says.
“Why not cook it?” I ask.
“You couldn’t,” my grandmother interjects. “The cooks were always in the kitchen.”
My eyes return to the pins. One catches his attention. “Look at that red one. What does it say?” I squint at the faded markings. “1957,” I reply.
“May 1st, 1957,” he says with a grin. “We’d leave work early to join the communist celebrations in Levice. If you carried a flag or wore a pin like this one,” he gestures to the red badge, “they’d reward you with 50 crowns. We’d chant, ‘So Sovietským zväzom na večné časy a nikdy inak!’ (‘With the Soviet Union for all eternity, and never any other way!’) and end with three loud shouts of Hurá!”
My grandmother shifts the story, reminiscing about motorbike rides to Levice for films at the amphitheater, now a crumbling relic. “Films also came to the village in a moving cinema. The loudspeakers, still standing around the village today, would announce what was playing. I remember Winnetou and Žralok.”
“Jaws?” I ask, surprised.
“Yes,” she nods.
Pins weren’t just for adults. My aunt’s collection from her scouting days includes markers for good deeds, verse recitals, and exercise. “We’d wear them proudly on our dresses,” she says, recalling a trip to Moscow. “But when I visited Lenin’s Mausoleum, a soldier made me remove my Lenin pin.”
Though decades have passed, the era feels close. Pins remain in boxes, photos of communist years lie in drawers, and medals hang in the basement. The older generation remembers both the hardships and the stability—jobs for all, but no freedom.
Today, my grandparents still stick to their traditions. My grandmother checks rice for dirt before cooking, a habit from when impurities were common. My grandfather tends the garden, even in the cold, breaking ice to fetch water. Together, they tie chocolates to the Christmas tree, just as they have for decades.
In the living room, a bowl of mandarins, bananas, and apples overflows on the table. The warm citrus scent fills the air, no longer reserved for winter holidays but still infused with the same nostalgia.