Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain
Words: Pattie Pegler Photography: Supplied
Growing up in a small town in Hungary, Viktoria Doocey never imagined she would be bringing up her own children on the other side of the world. The mother-of-two is married to Waimakariri’s National MP, Matt Doocey and also teaches swimming in Kaiapoi and Rangiora. She’s thoroughly immersed in the community and absolutely loves New Zealand and the small-town life of North Canterbury she says. But as a child her world was very different.
So what are her memories of growing up in the 1980s in a communist country? “Let me start with one thing, that’s the oranges and the bananas,” she says, “This is what I always remember. They always made sure you had enough but not too much…and I remember If it was Christmas you always had bananas and oranges under the Christmas tree because that was the only time in the year that you could get them in Hungary.”
It is a memory that has stuck with Viktoria but there were, of course, far wider restrictions that meant limited access to television and news from the “free world”. And keeping in touch with relatives could also be difficult. Viktoria’s mother had cousins in France and Germany but the only way to communicate was by post. But this was heavily censored so letters would arrive with parts crossed out – someone had decided what they were allowed to read and the information that could come into the country.
Travel was also limited. Passports were hard to get and came in two colours red or blue. Blue passports were for the wealthy and well-connected and allowed travel to the West whilst red passports were for everyone else and only allowed travel to other communist bloc countries. There were two barracks in Viktoria’s hometown of Kalosca that were occupied by Russian soldiers but that changed in 1989 with the fall of communism. “All I remember is that the soldiers were on the streets one day and then gone and the barracks were empty,” says Viktoria.
Two years prior to that, at the age of seven, Viktoria had started to get involved in gymnastics. She was the only female member of the town’s gymnastics club and would practice for several hours a week. It’s a very stereotypical communist bloc sport but it was one that started her on her path through life.
“My gymnastics coach was the person who believed in me so much,” says Viktoria.
“She was the person who put her hand in her own pocket and paid for taking me up to do the test [for university entrance]. She was the one who supported me”. She remains a close friend to this day. Viktoria’s parents were less convinced about her desire to go to university. Having grown up under a regime where only the wealthy went to university, her father was sure this wasn’t the right thing for his daughter and refused to support or finance her in any way.
But she followed her own path and supported herself through university by working in cafes whilst her mother would freeze portions of meals she had cooked and send them to her daughter with a local bus driver who drove the route between the two towns.
Talking about her father she sees the positives of his attitude. “I always think that’s actually great the way he was because that made me strong,” she says. “That made me put my foot down and fight for what I wanted.”
In 2004, without a word of English she headed off to the UK to learn the language, knowledge of a foreign language was a requirement for graduating in Hungary. So she worked as an au pair and then in a pub in London and studied English during the day. She met Matt in London and in 2013 they got married in her hometown and shortly afterwards moved to New Zealand and started the family life that they live now.
It’s a life with many more freedoms than Viktoria grew up with, but she intends to keep her children well-grounded. They may have oranges when it’s not Christmas but Christmas presents are limited and i-pads aren’t an option yet. “We don’t buy them things. You know when you go to a shop and children say ‘I want this’, ‘I want that’. I just say no. We try to do down to earth parenting,” she says. “We are very simple people.”