Sighetu Marmatiei and Sapanta:

The main street of Sighetu Marmatiei where Elie Wiesel was born:

It's not just the graves that are richly decorated in Sapanta:

Laundry...Sapanta style:

Church of the Assumption:

Lives...

This 3 year old girl was killed in an auto accident. Her epitaph:

Burn in hell, you damn taxi

That came from Sibiu.

As large as Romania is

You couldn't find another place to stop,

Only in front of my house to kill me?

The crosses depict occupations, hobbies, cause of death and family life:

This woman spent every day at her front gate waiting for her husband to come home:

Her husband "disappeared" and the family never found out what happened to him. She never stopped waiting for him.

This teenager moved to Paris to earn money for his family in Sapanta and was killed while he was rollerblading:

Cimitirul Vesel:

Cimitirul Vesel - the Merry Cemetery - in Sapanta village, Maramures is filled with over 800 unique graves:

In 1935, Stan Ioan Patras began carving these oak crosses that have folk rhymes carved into the wood:

The rhymes celebrate the person's life and are often humourous:

All the crosses are painted blue, to symbolise the sky where the soul rises after death:

It is a place that celebrates life, rather than mourning the loss of it.