Sunday 20th July 2008 – Sapanta, Romania

We woke this morning to the sounds of the river, swollen by yesterday's rain, on one side of the campsite and the bells of the cows returning to their pasture on the other side – much better than a busy road or railway line!
Our main reason for coming so far north, just 2km from the Ukranian border, was to see a cemetery. Not just any old cemetery but the 'Merry Cemetery'. In 1935, a local man called Stan Ioan Patras started to create wooden crosses for the graves in the village churchyard. Rather than standard grave markings, these were carved with depictions of the person's life, including their image, and underneath this is a rhyme about their life. The crosses have a base colour of 'Sapanta blue' (representing either hope and liberty, according to Michael Palin, or the sky where the souls of the dead rise, according to the cemetery information board) and are then painted in bright colours. This together with the ironic and humorous verse is why the cemetery is called 'Merry'. It really is a celebration of the people's lives and, although it is still a place to remember the dead, it has a much more cheerful atmosphere than any other churchyard that I have visited.
When we arrived, we found that there was a service in the church and the path to the church was full of women, many in traditional dress. They still observe the tradition of separating the sexes in church – the men stand (there are no seats) at the front of the church and the women at the back. There wasn't enough room for the women and they spilled out of the door into the porch. Beautiful, eligible young women in pretty traditional dress were stood around in groups whilst grandmothers, dressed in black, chatted.
We spent a couple of hours in the churchyard wandering around the over 800 painted crosses. Although Stan Ioan Patras died over 30 years ago, recent graves are still marked by the crosses, now made by one of his apprentices. There was no guide to the crosses that translated the verses into English (surely a business opportunity!) and given that Romanian is totally incomprehensible to us, we had to work out the story from the pictures. Some crosses had pictures on both sides and these appeared to be, in some cases, different aspects of the same persons life and in other cases were two separate people, perhaps a mother and her child who had died at an early age. Others were tragic such as a the three year old run over by a car; a 22 year old killed by a train; a farmer shot by a bandit and a baby's grave marked by a carved but unpainted cross. Most were much more cheerful, showing people at their work – many farmers (with their tractors, with their flocks of sheep or herd of cows, threshing, hay making or fruit picking), lumberjacks, carpenters, a shopkeeper, a bar owner, a nurse, a vet, miners, musicians, a repairer of electronic equipment, a seamstress. Women were often depicted in domestic situations (in the kitchen, weaving, spinning wool) but were also shown working in the fields and in a few cases, on their knees, praying. The other side of these crosses often showed other aspects of their life – eating a meal with their family, dancing, playing cards with friends. It was absolutely fascinating. I was particularly intriguing to see the crosses with ladies spinning wool, one of which was dated 2006 and showed just the same equipment that we had seen a few days ago.
Eventually, we dragged ourselves away and headed for the church, signposted off the main road. This church was not mentioned in our guidebook and when we got there (surely much further than the 500m that the sign indicated), we discovered why. It is a newly built wooden church with a massive wooden spire, the tallest in the region and surely a contender for the tallest in Romania. The interior is not yet complete but the building is extremely impressive, with massive oak timbers resting on a stone base and rising to the slender spire with the whole roof covered in shingles. Another smaller, two-storey wooden spired building has been built to one side and a large concrete building is being constructed nearby. A small woodland park surrounds the buildings. The signs actually directed us to the 'monastery' and it may be that this is what it will become, although the description of 'monastery' is often given to simple churches.
It was now very late for lunch and we were rather hungry. Back on the main road I spotted a pension that had a sign indicating that it did food and there was obviously an open bar in the basement. I went in and asked whether they had food and the initial answer was negative. The lady hesitated and although she spoke no English, she indicated that we should wait a minute and she disappeared off to the farm next to the pension. When she came back, she showed us to a table and soon came along with some bread, cutlery and what we both assumed was vinegar in an old plastic coke bottle. Returning with two glasses, she poured out the 'vinegar' for us – it was, of course, plum brandy. This was very good of her but it was really hot and what we really wanted was long cold shandies. I tried to order a beer and lemonade but discovered that one simply went behind the bar and extracted the bottles from the refrigerated cabinets. There was no menu, the food simply arrived – a large pan of meat and vegetable soup with cream and stuffed cabbage leaves. There was too much soup for us even after I had a very large second helping. There was normal white bread for the soup and a special bread, which I am almost certain was a polenta bread made with with maize flour, that we were told had to be eaten with the cabbage leaves. It was all delicious and was followed by a desert of crescent moon shaped biscuits with jam. During the meal, we watched the river rushing by below us as we sat on a wooden balcony full of solid wooded furniture.
Paying the bill should have been easy but it wasn't. Because the lady from the farm had provided the food, she had to be consulted as to how much we should pay. We walked over to see her but she wasn't there and her daughter(?) didn't know what to charge. In the end, we consulted a old lady dressed in black before returning to the bar where our hostess indicated the price by typing it on the calculator – 25 lei. The whole meal and drinks came to £7! I gave a large tip and with many expressions of thanks we set off back to the campsite.
Photos: Girls in traditional dress at Sapanta church; The grave of Stan Ioan Patras with a small part of the graveyard behind; A collage of some of the painted crosses – the lady in the top right was a seamstress, shown here using her Zingher (as opposed to a Singer) sewing machine and the lady bottom centre is spinning wool; The new wooden church of Sapanta.