The worldwide fame of Sapânta is due to the unique cemetery that has become an important attraction. Some days the throngs of tourists that assault the cemetery with their cameras ready make one wonder if it really is possible to rest in peace here!
Offert type: City break
Transport means: Bus
Description
Underneath this heavy cross
Lies my mother-in-law poor
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. The village of Săpânța, located just 4 kilometres south of the Ukrainian border is world-famous for its original "Merry Cemetery": a special kind of graveyard, with wooden crosses painted in vivid colors. A particular blue, called „Sapanta blue" rules over all the other colors.
Stan Ioan Patras, the author of this cemetery, carved the first cross in 1935. He died in 1977 and his creation was continued to this day and carried on by Patras's apprentice, Dumitu Pop.
Each cross is different: the carved images naively catch one of the deceased lifetime's characteristic attitudes, while the epitaphs are short poems, deprived of the usual cliches and full of substance, written in the first person like a confession of the deceased himself.
The original character of the cemetery is first of all suggested by its name: Cimitirul Vesel that means The Merry Cemetery. This paradoxical name is due to the vivid colours of the crosses and the amusing or satirical epitaphs carved on them. It is said that this joyful attitude towards death is a legacy of the Dacians who believed in the immortality of the soul and that death was only a passage to a better life. They did not see death as a tragic end, but as a chance to meet with the supreme god, Zalmoxis. The cemetery dates back to the mid-1930's and is the creation of Stan Ioan Patras artist, sculptor, painter and poet rolled in one. Patras used all his skills to create this masterpiece. For half a century the master created hundreds of wooden crosses, carved in a distinctive style, so famous today.
The material used for the crosses is oak, which, after being properly cut and dried, is carved by hand. On the upper part of each cross is a bas-relief with a scene that describes the life of the deceased. The scenes are simple and naïve in style, but have an undeniable power: they bring back to life the inhabitants of the village and present their main occupation or a relevant aspect (either a virtue or a flaw) of their life. There are women spinning wool or weaving rugs, housewives baking bread, men cutting wood, farmers ploughing the land, shepherds tending their sheep, carpenters working the wood, musicians playing their instruments, butchers chopping lambs, teachers at their desks, alcoholics drinking, and so on. After the carving is done, the cross is painted. The background colour is a distinctive vivid blue, called “Sapânta blue“. Then the scene and the geometrical and floral decorations of the borders are painted with vibrant colours, yellow, red, white and green.
No cross is complete without a short poem, a few simple rhymes (between 7 and 17), carved under the image. The epitaphs are written in the local dialect. Sincere, spontaneous and written in the first person, they are messages from the dead persons to the living world. The style is usually lyrical, but ironic or satirical rhymes are also frequent. Each poem contains the name of the deceased and presents briefly an essential aspect of his/her life, personality or habits; they can even talk about things that happened after the death of the person, at the burial for example, or describe how death occurred. Bad habits are humorously presented, but with a deeply moralizing intent.
One famous epitaph is: Underneath this heavy cross
Lies my mother-in-law poor
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.
Other poems: The grave marker of Stan Ioan Patras, the creator of the Merry Cemetery: Ever since a little boy
I was called Stan Ion Patras
Please listen to me good folks
What I say are not lies
All the days that I lived
I never wished ill for anyone
But all the good that I could
To whoever asked for it
Oh this poor world of mine
So hard was my life in it.
Here I rest
And Gheorghe Pop is my name
Like a handsome mountain fir
I was in my parents’ yard
Young and kind-hearted
There were not many like me in the village
When I finished the army
I bought myself a car
And the whole country I toured
Many friends I found
Many friends that were kind
The way I liked
When I was to live my youth
In the earth I rot.
The dead get to speak for themselves in simple verses in the first person, oftentimes full of deliberate grammatical errors and regionalisms. For posterity they name their accomplishments in life and also lament their sorrows.
On one famous cross, a three-year-old girl pours out her anger over the way her life ended so abruptly: “Burn in hell, you bloody taxi
That came from Sibiu.
Of all the places in this country
You had to stop right here.
By my house you hit me so
And sent me to the death below
And left my parents full of woe.”
With these images and the short poems, Stan Ioan Pătraş and Dumitru Pop Tincu have managed to recreate the entire village at the cemetery and give the people a second life beyond the grave. The more than 800 painted crosses constitute a vast archive that preserves, carved in wood, the stories of the people of Săpânţa.
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