Săpânța is a small village in Maramureș county, in the far north of Romania, near the Ukrainian border. It is famous for one thing: the Merry Cemetery (Cimitirul Vesel), one of the most unusual burial grounds in Europe.
The Merry Cemetery's wooden crosses are painted in a vivid blue and carved with colourful scenes and witty epitaphs that describe the life — and sometimes the death — of the person buried beneath. A heavy drinker's cross shows him with a bottle; a shepherd's shows his flock. The tradition was started in 1935 by local woodcarver Stan Ioan Pătraș, whose workshop and house next to the cemetery is now a small museum. The carvings are folk art of a high order, funny and moving in equal measure.
Săpânța is also home to the Săpânța-Peri Monastery, which claims the tallest wooden church in the world — a 78-metre spire built entirely of oak, completed in 2003 as a deliberate revival of the Maramureș wooden church tradition. The village itself is a quiet farming settlement in the rolling hills of Maramureș, a region where traditional wooden architecture, haystacks, and horse-drawn carts still define the landscape.
Getting here requires a car or a tour from Sighetu Marmației, which is about 18 kilometres to the south.