Are you ready to take a trip to a unique cemetery in Romania? Where death and cemetery culture is a bit different from the rest of the world. Today we are going to take a brief trip to Săpânţa, Romania!

    The Merry Cemetery in Săpânţa, Romania is one of the most notable and appealing cemeteries in the world. Albeit it is a small populated town in Romania, it is utterly breathtaking with its unique style of painted tombstones and interesting tradition.

This fascinating tradition started in the 1930s by Ion Stan Patras who was a local artist in the town. He was born in 1908 and had already gotten interested in carving crosses for the local cemetery at the age of 14. Later on in his life, he also started craving ironic poems about the deceased. These poems were chiefly sarcastic and witty about the deceased’s life. Additionally, he also started painting the day the deceased died on the cross.

Therefore, it can be found out their personality and pivotal events in their life by just taking a brief glance.

    Not only he has a unique and alluring naive style but he also uses symbolism in his art. Each colour he uses on the cross has a special meaning about their life such as green for life, yellow for fertility, red for passion and black for death. He also had other symbolism for example white doves for the soul and blackbird to represent a dubious death. 

    After his death in 1977, his apprentice Dumitru Pop, who is as talented as he was, took the place and since then he has been spending the last 3 decades craving and carrying on Ion Stan’s truly stunning work. Pop also has turned the cemetery into a workshop museum.

To sum up, The Merry Cementery in Romania has shown us that death may not be perpetually glum; can also be colourful, alluring and interesting with its unique perception of death.