The hollowed-out spaces of derelict sugar factories documented by Slovak artist Ilona Németh in the project Eastern Sugar (2018-21) register the social impact of deindustrialization and symbolize the broken promises of the post-communist transition. The demise of the East European sugar industry also raises questions about the disappearance of the culture, lifestyles, as well as attitudes and practices towards the natural world, that grew up alongside socialist infrastructures. What can be learned from the ruins of sugar factories about the distinctive socialist path through the Anthropocene and what parallels can be drawn between the rise and fall of northern sugar beet and the social and environmental histories of southern sugar cane?