Visit Maramures

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The village of Săpânța, located just 4 kilometres south of the Ukrainian border is world-famous for its original "Merry Cemetery": a special kind of graveyard, with wooden crosses painted in vivid colors. A particular blue, called „Sapanta blue" rules over all the other colors.

Stan Ioan Patras, the author of this cemetery, carved the first cross in 1935. He died in 1977 and his creation was continued to this day and carried on by Patras's apprentice, Dumitu Pop.

Each cross is different: the carved images naively catch one of the deceased lifetime's characteristic attitudes, while the epitaphs are short poems, deprived of the usual cliches and full of substance, written in the first person like a confession of the deceased himself.

                           

Sometimes criticized in what concerns the good taste and artistic quality, the Merry Cemetery is undoubtedlly attractive for its unique perspective over death and the special peasant mentality reflected here. Here are some examples of what you can find on the crosses:

and one of the funniest and most famous:

Under this heavy cross lies my mother-in-law

Had she lived another three days

It would have been me who lied here

And she would have been the reader