The Most Visited Cemetery in Europe: The Merry Cemetery in Sapanta, Maramures, Romania
We’re usually pious in cemeteries, and the words engraved in stone are full of tears. But in the Merry Cemetery in Săpânța, Maramureș, Romania, things sometimes take a different turn.
In north-western Romania there’s an enchanted region called Maramures. It’s a land with centuries-old, UNESCO World Heritage wooden churches with tall tapering steeples, where locals gather in traditional garb every Sunday. It’s a land with large wooden gates with ancient motifs such as solar disks, the tree of life, and crosses, and many festivals with origins lost in the sands of time. A place where many people continue to live according to the old ways: washing blankets and carpets without detergent in a wooden funnel with the water whirling at the center; growing vegetables; raising chickens, rabbits, pigs, cattle, goats, and other fowl and livestock; making yogurt and cheese; and working the fields to have food for their animals, and wheat and corn for their bread, pastries, polenta, and corn and cheese soup. (Locals have been using corn in Maramures since the 17th century.)
Landscapes and life in Maramures feel steeped into a different time. When I visited Sighetu…
