Jennifer MeinhardtSeptember 10, 2015

Maramures & the Merry Cemetery

Jennifer MeinhardtSeptember 10, 2015

The Maramures region of Romania has held onto its traditions since the Middle Ages, including very well-preserved wooden churches, built in response to the prohibition against stone Orthodox churches by the Austro-Hungarian authorities.

Eight of these fantastically strange buildings were listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, and we employed our friend Sorin again to help us find and visit each one.

Bulky hay bales dot the Transylvanian countryside. In Maramures families still tend their land by hand.

The Church of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, or Bârsana church. Built in 1720, it features baroque indoor murals.

Evoking tears…and laughter, the Merry Cemetery (Cimitirul Vesel) takes an interesting approach to grief. The hand-carved “headstones” depict the deceased’s cause of death and their defining moments (and sometimes final moments) with vibrant colors and limericks.

Behind the Church of the Assumption in Săpânţa, Romania, Stan Ioan Pătraş singlehandedly carved and painted more than 800 of these folk art memory planks over a period of 40 years. His death in the 1970s meant his life’s work was left to his pupil, Dumitru Pop.

Our favorite line? “Underneath this heavy cross  lies my poor mother-in-law . Had she lived three days more  I would be here and she would read. You that are passing by, try not to wake her up  , for if she comes back home  she’ll bite my head off. But I will act in the way  that she will not return . Stay here my dear  Mother-in-law.”