Far away from ordinary and sadness which has nothing to do with what we feel when visiting the loved ones at the cemetery, and far away from people's knowledge and tourists eyes, there is this special cemetery from Romania which not only that will colour your life with the painted graves and the jokes on the crosses but also with it's name and story.

Cimitirul Vesel is a special cemetery, which has nothing to do with what you've seen before, located in Săpânța, also on Maramureș County, and it's famous for the different feelings that it has to share with its tourists and visitors.
The main attraction, or at least the first thing that people notice - are the colourful crosses of graves and the little paintings on the crosses, each one of them showing the occupation/passion and different life sequences of those who are resting now.
While visiting the graves and taking a look at their passions and who they really were, you will also notice that most of the crosses have the story of those who no longer exists but their memory is being kept alive into the hearts of the loved ones, written in funny lyrics.
That's how Cimitirul Vesel manages to be remarked rather through amusement and joy, than sadness and tears.

Even if the crosses look very alike and you might think that you have no chance to find the grave of your loved ones, that's wrong because each one of them has it's own story and originality, every single grave trying to make the visitors find a little bit more about him and not only its name.
That's why some of the crosses are painted on both of the sides, one of them being dedicated to life's story, and the other side for the reason of death.
Most of the crosses contain grammar mistakes and archaic writing variants, due to the speech accents used in this region.

Cimitirul Vesel have been created in 1935 by Stan Ioan Pătraș who was a simple man with the fear of God and blessed with a great passion - the love shared by carving the wood.
Stan Ioan Pătraș understood that death is just a part of the life's process and this made him stop looking at death with the rigidity we are all accustomed with.
He always considered that there is life after death, and this part of life is just a threshold on the way to another world. So he stopped thinking about death as a horrible ending, but just another chance to be happy for everything you had and realized along all these years lived as you wish.
The results of what Stan Ioan Pătraș created are pretty obvious, he wanted to transpose the essence of life into a happier moment that will make every human being face the death easily.

The pictures draw on the crosses represent one of the most important moments of the deceased's life.
Often, the pictures show the occupation of the people - such as hunter, cooker, farmer, woodcutter or forester, and the women are presented as weaving carpets, making bread and torching the wool.
If there are people who died into a less common accident, on its cross is being painted exactly the tragic sequence of how he died.
The lyrics written on the wood have an ironic note that is showing off the bad habits people used to have, but which make the tourists remain with a big smile on their faces and funny memories, rather than tears.

The wood used for creating the crosses is from oak, and today the cemetery is resting over 800 bodies.
Starting with 2009, Cimitirul Vesel has become more known having tourists from all over the world.
The cemetery not only that is a different touristic attraction than anything else, but it's unique in Europe and it represents a real and special outdoors museum which is being under UNESCO auspices.
Really close to the cemetery are different shops with traditional souvenirs and clothes, all of them created by hand. The prices are decent and the whole place deserves to be remembered forever.

We've been lucky enough to also see a traditional wedding while visiting the cemetery and church.

• Cimitirul Vesel is located in the north of Romania right at the border with Ukraine, in Săpânța, Maramureș, 437305.
• GPS coordinates: 47 58’ 22,33 N, 23 41’ 53,39
• The cemetery can be visited daily between 10 AM - 6 PM.
  Fees:
• 5 RON/Adult - Entrance fee (1.05 EUR);
• 5 RON - Photo fee (1.05 EUR);
• 10 RON - Video fee (2.10 EUR).

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