Photos

Barely 12 km from Sighetul Marmatiei, in the village of Sãpânta, there is one of the most uncommon places in the world: a large garden with carved crosses, mostly painted in blue, with peasant’s faces painted on them, accompanied by long epitaphs. A Frenchman once called this conclave of the dead “the merry graveyard”. The author of these unusual monuments is the carver in wood Ioan Stan Pãtras who in 1935 started carving in wood the deceased people’s biography, in humorous rhymes, describing their defects, qualities, dreams and failures. He died in 1977, but before that he had carved his own cross to continue bearing his shadow on earth. The Joyful Cemetery or the Merry Cemetery from Sapanta, creation of the popular artist Ioan Patras, is gathering some hundreds of "speaking" crosses. Using a text where the self irony interweaves the drama, they relate in a few phrases the story of the deceased. The traditional professions like woven, wood carving, wood and glass painting are practised successfully and are transmitted from generation to generation. The maramuresan music that joins all the happy moments of life is noticed by its rhythm and its vitality.