📜The Merry Cemetery from Săpânța

The first blue painted crosses adorned with naive paintings and funny epitaphs, were made by a craftsman called Stan Ioan Pătraș almost a century ago. They radically changed the identity of the village, and people began to come from all over the world to see how the villagers laughed in face of death. Here are some replicas of the crosses in the Merry Cemetery - an opportunity to reflect on the deeper meanings of this phenomenon.

 

There are other cross-makers in Săpânța today, who continue the tradition, carving, painting and depicting scenes from people's lives. Only the forester's cross is made of unpainted wood and sits forgotten in the forest. The inscription says: "The forester died here", as if announcing the absence of an authority to keep things in order. The villagers were blessed with a huge forest, from which they cut the wood for their houses, gates and crosses. Today, jeeps without number plates or with foreign plates leave daily filled with wood from here.