Maramureș in Pictures & Videos

Just after Easter, a couple friends and I went to Maramureș, the region in the northernmost part of Romania. It's over a 4 hour drive from Sighișoara. (On the map to the right, Sighișoara is located approximately where the letter "V" from the word "Transylvania" is.)

This blog post combines pictures we took on the trip, supplemented with background information and videos I've found on the places we visited. I hope you can get a get a glimpse of what we experienced.

Maramureș Traditions
Maramureș is probably the most remote region in Romania, which means it was the least touched by the "modernization" of the Communist era. Centuries-old traditions continue in Maramureș more so than in other places in Romania.

The video below, with subtitles in English, is a good introduction to Maramureș.

Vișeu de Sus: Mocănița Train

On our first morning in Maramureș, we, along with many Romanians on Easter vacation, went for a ride on the Mocănița train.

The Mocănița isn't a normal passenger train. It began in the 1930s as a narrow-gauge steam-powered railroad, transporting foresters up the mountain and logs down the mountain. It is the only forestry railroad still operating in Europe. Of course, the actual forestry trains have been updated to diesel trains, but they continue to use the well-maintained steam locomotives for tourists (like us).

Our train ride included a 3 hour journey up the mountain, stopping a few times for refueling and picture opportunities, an hour at the top for a picnic lunch, and a 2 hour ride down the mountain. Enjoy the following video I found on YouTube about the Mocănița train.

Village of Bogdan Vodă

Before coming to Maramureș, I had found the following video on YouTube. It is the first part of a documentary made in the late 1960s about life in Maramureș, specifically in the village of Bogdan Vodă. (Be sure to watch its continuation in Part 2.) 

Since we were driving through Bogdan Vodă anyway, we stopped and got a picture at the sign marking the entrance into the village.

In the photo below, you'll see that the wooden church in Bogdan Vodă, the landmark from the YouTube video that was easiest to identify, remains the same today.

Wooden Church in Ieud

Speaking of wooden churches, Maramureș is known for its wooden churches. They were made out of wood because the Hungarian authorities of the area were Roman Catholic Christians and did not permit the Romanians (Orthodox Christians) to build churches out of stone. Therefore, the resourceful Romanians built churches out of wood. Many of these churches remain standing centuries later.

The church in the village of Ieud is often considered to be the oldest of all the wooden churches in Maramureș. It was originally built in 1364 and rebuilt in the 1700s.

First page of the Ieud Codex

The "Ieud Codex," the oldest-known document written in the Romanian language, was found in the church's tower. Most scholars date it to the year 1391, when Romanian was still written with Cyrillic letters. The Codex is now housed in the archives of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest

Inside the church in Ieud:
Painting of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob gathering
the multitude of their descendants to their bosom.

Wooden church in Poienile Izei

Wooden Church in Poienile Izei

The village church of Poienile Izei was built in 1604. Its interior, like many churches, is filled with frescoes. The vivid scenes depicted in the Last Judgment, painted in 1794, (see below) portray the terrible punishments for sins:

the liar hanged by his tongue, the witch gored by cows for casting a spell on them, the farmer plowed by two devils for stealing his neighbor's land, the mother forced to swallow her aborted baby, and the person who sleeps while the priest is preaching, is forced to lay on a burning bed and endure the devil's violin.*

The Last Judgment
Poienile Izei

Sighet: Elie Wiesel Memorial House

The next day we went to the town of Sighetu Marmației (often referred to simply as "Sighet"). Our first stop was the Elie Wiesel Memorial House.

Elie Wiesel, a Transylvanian Jew, spent his childhood and early teen years in this house. In his well-known book Night, he describes the house during World War II, as the town's large Jewish population was forced into ghettos:

"Two ghettos were created in Sighet. A large one in the center of town that occupied four streets, and another smaller one extended over several alleyways on the outskirts of town. The street we lived on, Serpent Street, was in the first ghetto. We therefore could remain in our house. But, as it occupied a corner, the windows facing the street outside the ghetto had to be sealed." 

The white and blue house on the corner is the Elie Wiesel Memorial House. 
I reread Wiesel's Night before visiting Sighet. 

Elie Wiesel, his parents, and two sisters, were deported with the rest of the Jews from Sighet. He and his father were taken to to Auschwitz and later moved to Buchenwald. Both of his parents and his younger sister died in the concentration camp.

Buchenwald concentration camp, 1945.
Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left,
next to the bunk post. Photo from Wikipedia.

Wiesel captures in Night these and other atrocities he experienced during the holocaust. If you haven't read Night, the video below captures some of the main events from the book.

After the war, Elie Wiesel moved to the United States, where he became professor and has advocated for many causes on a global scale. In 1986 he was the recipient of  the Nobel Peace Prize. Wiesel continues to live in the U.S.

Today, there are no Jews living in Sighet.

Sighet: Prison Museum

Also in Sighet, we visited the Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance, better known as the Prison Museum.

Sighet Prison was built in 1897 as a prison for criminal offenders. After World War II, when the communists took control of Romania, the prison became one of the country’s harshest prisons for political opponents of the regime, including students, academics, military officers, priests, historians, politicians, and journalists. The prisoners were kept in miserable conditions, and punishments were harsh. Out of its approximately 200 prisoners, 52 died before the prison closed in 1977.

In the 1990s, the building was converted into a museum. Each cell now features a different topic relating to communism, prison life, and the political atmosphere in communist Romania.

Săpânța: Merry Cemetery

Near Sighet lies the village of Săpânța, made famous by the Merry Cemetery (sometimes translated as the "Cheerful Cemetery"). The carved wooden grave markers are painted in vivid colors with a scene from the deceased life, or a depiction of how they died. Below each image is a short, often satirical, epitaph, written about the person's life in the first person, as if the deceased were telling it themselves.

While in Săpânța, we met Dumitru Pop Tincu, the man who has been making the grave markers since 1977, when the creator of the Merry Cemetery, died.

Photos of Maramureș

To view more photos from our trip to Maramures, check out my album on Facebook.