7. Traditional Handcrafts
If you come and visit Maramureş, you will get the chance to see the lively process of handcrafting, which has stayed the same for centuries. Wood carving is among one of our traditional handicrafts: plates, forks, seal engravers, pieces of furniture, houses, gateways, wooden churches – they are all shaped by local artisans. Women still maintain the secret of extracting natural colours from plants and bark. In every traditional house, you can find a pole with woollen, linen, and hemp fabrics, woven with a "teara" (a cloth-weaving loom), which are a maiden's pride and dowry.
Pottery centres, such as the one in Săcel, extract red clay from great depths and then elaborate it using ancient techniques. One of the artisans here makes traditional masks enriching winter customs. In the villages of Sârbi and Budești in the Cosău Valley you can find the last hat makers in Historical Maramureș. It is also on the Cosău Valley that you will find the greatest number of peasant installations: whirlpools, flour mills, carding mills, fulling mills, distilleries. Making traditional costumes, jewellery and glass painting are other handicrafts passed from one generation to the next, bearing the seal of Maramureş.
Pottery centres, such as the one in Săcel, extract red clay from great depths and then elaborate it using ancient techniques. One of the artisans here makes traditional masks enriching winter customs. In the villages of Sârbi and Budești in the Cosău Valley you can find the last hat makers in Historical Maramureș. It is also on the Cosău Valley that you will find the greatest number of peasant installations: whirlpools, flour mills, carding mills, fulling mills, distilleries. Making traditional costumes, jewellery and glass painting are other handicrafts passed from one generation to the next, bearing the seal of Maramureş.