Merry Cemetery ( Cimitirul Vesel ) - Maramures, Romania

 Hello travellers!

 

Hope you had time to refresh after our latest festival experience. If you missed it, you still have the chance to read about it here. 

 

Now, as the Halloween is quickly approaching, this week’s posts are going to be dedicated to this spooky celebration. We are going to start our tour with a cemetery – inspired choice for a Halloween scenario.

 

But there’s actually something special about this cemetery. It’s a merry one! If you can’t really imagine what could possibly make a cemetery merry, stick around to find out. It diverges from the European culture, where death is seen as a sad event. It is connected to the local Dacian culture, whose philosophical tenets presumably vouched for the immortality of the soul and the belief that death was a moment filled with joy and anticipation for a better life. Because of this unusual trait, the cemetery is as well a museum, attracting thousands of nationals and foreigners monthly.

 

This is the Merry Cemetery ( or Cimitirul Vesel, in Romanian), located in the village of Sapanta, Maramures county, Romania. It was founded by a local artist named Stan Ioan Patras, who sculpted the first tombstone crosses and the first epitaph in 1935. Now, approximately 800 crosses can be counted in the Merry Cemetery (corresponding to 800 tombs). As you can see, the difference between this and the usual cemeteries is that the tombstones are painted and designed in a bright and joyful way, meant to cheerish the dead ones. 

 

Now, more about the tombstones. They are usually painted blue. The patterns on the crosses are Romanian traditional patterns – the same you can find on the traditional costumes. Under the cross, there is usually a painting of the deceased one wearing Romanian traditional clothes, depicting them either doing a usual activity or with their cause of death (for example here, the woman was hit by a taxi – so they painted the scene prior to her death). 

Below the paintings, there is usually carved a funny epitaph about the life or cause of death of the deceased, that is meant to complement the painting above.

 

Here is a text written on one of the crosses:

Romanian Sub această cruce grea  Zace biata soacră-mea Trei zile de mai trăia Zăceam eu și cetea ea. Voi care treceți pă aici Incercați să n-o treziți Că acasă dacă vine Iarăi cu gura pă mine Da așa eu m-oi purta Că-napoi n-a înturna Stai aicea dragă soacră-mea

English Under this heavy cross Lies my poor mother-in-law Three more days should she have lived I would lie, and she would read (this cross). You, who here are passing by Not to wake her up please try Cause' if she comes back home She'll scold me more. But I will surely behave So she'll not return from grave. Stay here, my dear mother-in-law

Tourists describe the attraction as „a national brand”, „a unique place”, „must-see if you travel to Maramures”. The visits usually take around a couple of hours because of the multitude of crosses that you can read, but the experience is totally worth it. Also, close to the museum can be found the Stan Ioan Patras house, a memorial for the founder of the cemetery.

 

This is the end of our today’s journey. We are going to let you wander around the crosses and enjoy the merry scenery of this cemetery until it’s time to approach our next attraction.

 

We hope you have enjoyed today’s attraction. If you want to keep in touch with us, follow us on Instagram @travelteria. We are also very curious to hear from you! Leave us suggestions for: Where should we go next?