Happy Cemetery, Romania

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:02:26 +0000

If we go 25 kilometers from the Vadu Izei along the Sight-Sadu Mare county road, we come to a place near the Ukranian border on the northwestern side of Romania called Sapanta. This place is already mentioned in a document dated back in the 14th century. This site is mainly famous for its monumental structure The Happy Cemetery, which is also known as the Folk Art Museum. The history goes as once upon a time, there was an old church which was burnt down in a fire and many people got buried down into the ruins, though in its place, a new one was reconstructed which served the social purpose.
But apart from that, the local culture proved its difference from the other typical European cultures that believed in the solemnity and sorrow of someone’s death, and rather followed the Dacian philosophy that souls are immortal and death is only the gateway to a new world. The great monument shows the Romanian sense of humor and optimistic spirit that celebrates the death of the many people for their release from this world and their onset of a new voyage.
The museum is filled with around 800 colorful tombstones, with local rural paintings and verses and writings over them, signifying the live-stories of the people. It had wooden headboards, made from oak, and the old painted images depicted the best moments from the life of the dead individuals. The paintings were rather plain and descriptive, while the verses and the epitaphs carved on the tombstones were either plain, or very poetic, or very ironic in nature. They not only said about the best moments of someone’s life but also about some practical and most common incidents that can happen in one’s life. Sometimes they were pretty direct and were always written as if the person writes himself like – “an evil man shot me in the back”, or in some other case, it said about someone’s love of the Romanian plum brandy in some poetic verses like –
“Now I will tell you a good one/ I kind of liked the plum tuica/ With my friends at the pub/ I used to forget what I came for.”
This whole monument was designed and partially carved by a local artisan named Stan Lon Patras, who hailed from a family of wood artists. He believed in the significance of some of the colors like a signature shade of blue, called Sapanta blue, standing for freedom and hope, red for love and passion, green standing for life and yellow standing for fertility. He used these colors to draw the lives of the rural people in the many vivid pictures. He died some 30 year ago. He carved his own cross, which now stands as a mark on his grave. The whole work was carried on and completed by his disciples. His house is now a small museum.
He wanted to create something for his fellow dead people and instead, he started a whole new cultural style in that region. Hence it is a must visit for all tourists to Romania – Visit Happy Cemetery

Also check out Bran Castle Romania.

Bran castle – A castle with a horrifying legacy

admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:39:17 +0000

Bran castle has been famous for count Dracula, the tyrannical vampire who lived in a place called Romania. The character has gained an amazing amount of fame after a book under the same name was written by Bram Stoker in the year 1876. It has now been exalted to the status of a landmark in this Eastern European country. This castle has been given its name because it was, home to Prince Vlad Tepes who then became Count Dracula. Every year tourists come to this place to get a look at the furniture and art works collected by Queen Marie. The tourists can see the castle individually or do so with the help of a guide.

As far as the history of this castle is concerned, legend has it that this site was built in 1212 by Knights of the Teutonic Order. At that time it was known as Dietrichstein. Why most of the people believe that this castle could be home to count Dracula is because of the fact that it has a lot of secret passages which can easily hide a vampire in them.
Prince Vlad Tepes(1431-1476) did not reside in this castle actually but gained refuge in its dungeons of two days when the Ottomans had seized Transylvania. He was the prince of the place named Wallachia and imposed very strict rules there when it came to punishing anybody who could pose a threat to his reign. There were many such people according to him including beggars, clever priests, cruel and exacting Saxons and scheming noblemen. The castle was used for providing defense against the Ottoman empire for the first time in the year 1378.
It was then used for the purpose of serving as a customs post on the pass between Transylvania and Wallachia.
Clad started imposing death punishments on anybody whom deemed was sent by his step brother Vlad the Monk or cousin Dan the Young to harm him. He was called Dracula because his signatures were made in his father’s name with Dracul or devil.

Coming to the more recent years, after the royal family was thrown out of this place in the year 1948, the communist regime gained hold of this castle. But in 2006 the ownership of this castle was finally awarded to Prince of Tuscany whose name was Dominic von Habsburg, an architect in New York.
He had inherited the castle from his mother Princess Illeana, daughter of Queen Marie.
He finally decided to put up the castle for auction in year 2007 but the government of Romania did not allow him to do so. In fact the castle has now been converted into a museum for tourists. This castle attracts tourists from all over the world now. It shows to the tourists the artifact collected by Queen Marie including the conventional tapestries and furniture collected by her as a mark of Romanian culture. One can also get to see the museum located at the bottom of a hill displaying conventional peasant structures – Visit Bran castle

Weird, Strange, Interesting Places to Visit » Romania

Happy Cemetery, Romania

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Bran castle – A castle with a horrifying legacy

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