Merry cemetary

I had tried to go to the Merry Cemetary back in September, but this was when I was young and naive in regards to Romanian train travel. Now, I'm old and bitter and fully aware of the realities of Romanian transportation.

I told one of the French interns right before I left where I was going.

"J'irai voir la cimetiere gaie a Maramures"
"Cimetiere gaie? Il y a une cimetiere homosexuelle en Roumanie?"

I'm sure you guys can figure out the translation.

The Merry Cemetary is located in Sapanta. I read about them, but didn't know much about how they would look. I pictured a small field of colourful painted wooden crosses. I didn't realise the crosses would be so beautiful.

Most of the crosses feature painted carvings of the local villagers engaged in their professions, along with poems about their life, hopes, dreams, and wishes. Some of the poems are happy, some are funny, some are sad and some are bittersweet. The oldest crosses have lost most of their paint, but later crosses have metal roofs. Their colours are also routinely touched up.

Some crosses have small inlaid portraits of the deceased along with their caricature. Because the poems are written in the Maramures dialect, I would barely understand a word. Luckily, there was a book in the museum which featured translations. One particularly struck me. It was for a young girl who died at age six. The poem described how she never went to school,m but she was a good girl who brought her family much joy. Another cross showed a picture of what looked to be someone getting attacked by molten lava spweding out of a funnel. The poem described how the deceased was nineteen when she died in a factory accident.

We met the current cross carver, who learned the art from the original carver. He explained that he and he alone writes the poems. He knows everyone in the village and is currently training new carvers, all from a local art school. For reasons I didn't understand, only men are allowed to carve the crosses.