Sighetu Marmatiei, an Ancient city of Romania

The county of Maramures (northern Romania) second largest town, Sighetu Marmatiei is first mentioned in a document from 1334, but archaeological evidence points at earlier human settlements from the late Bronze Age. The town is located at a junction of major trade roads and in the neighborhood of salt mining centers. This is why it used to be the most important administrative, commercial and cultural center of Maramures. It got its name from a seemingly insular position, the town lies between three watercourses, the Tisa and its tributaries, the Iza and Ronisoara.

Foreign travelers before World War II described Sighetu Marmatiei as a town with a strong Jewish component. The tragedy of deportation to Nazi concentration camps that struck Jewish communities throughout Eastern Europe did not spare the local population. The writer and human rights activist Elie Wiesel, laureate of the Nobel Prize for Peace was born here (in a house now turned museum) and his work is a living piece of evidence to this tragedy.

Sighetu Marmatiei offers the tourist a wide palette of architectural styles. The building at no. 1, street Bogdan Voda, houses the Ethnographic Museum of Maramures that displays tools and installations related to the main traditional crafts, such as ingenious agricultural tools, weaving utensils, rugs, carnival masks, handicraft, icons, pottery, furniture and elements of architecture.

Besides this collection of ethnography, the tourist can visit the open air Museum of Maramures Village on Dobaies hill. Around the wooden church that was brought here from Oncesti, a full-sized village typical to Maramures is currently developing. It’s homesteads enable the patient visitor to grasp the true essence of folk architectures in the Land of Maramures, such as this was structured in time.

The construction of the lofty Baroque Roman-Catholic church in the town square started in 1730. The buildings that flank it are the seat of Maramures Museum and its History-Archeology as well as Natural Science sections, respectively. A large collection of artifacts from the Bronze Age can bee seen in the History-Archeology Sections. Noteworthy are also the seasonal exhibitions.

The Sections of Natural Science is housed in the precincts of the building at no. 25 Libertatii Street. It boasts as well as a herbarium with nearly 20,000 sheets which is the lifetime work of engineer Arthur Coman.

At no. 17 Ioan Mihalyi de Apsa Street, you can find Dr. Ioan Mihalyi de Apsa Memorial House. The scientist’s office and library, as well the Baroque parlor, which has been maintained unaltered. The original documents and paintings outline the image of an outstanding personality. After the communists came to power in 1945, they immediately arrested the most prominent political leaders, many of the former ministries, high ranking officers, priests and some of the country’s most brilliant intellectuals and they put them in jail in Sighetu Marmatiei. Most of the martyrs –some of them over 70 years old- never stepped out of this prison. They lie in anonymous graves, with neither crosses nor names to identify them. After the fall of communism in 1989, the premises of this terrible prison have been arranged into a unique museum that perfectly deserve its name: Museum of the Arrested Thought.

The town center preserves several Baroque buildings, erected in the 18th century. The Protestant church was built in the second half of the 15th century on the location of another edifice, erected in the early Gothic style between 1050-1150, that has been partly destroyed and rebuilt several times.

In the Gradina Morii park, at the foot of Solovan hill at the point called Cetate, you can see some ancient trees. Near the Marmatia hotel, the riverbed of the Iza was arranged into a natural swimming and bathing pool.

Every year between Christmas and the New Year’s Eve, the town center turns into a large carnival, with colorful masks and strange characters such as the Goat, the Whitebeard, Lady Death or the three Magi parading along the crowded streets. This is the Marmatia Festival of Winter and Traditions that gathers folk groups from villages in the Land of Maramures, that re-enact ancient traditions, sing carols and perform old rituals.

This festival provides tourist the best opportunity to witness the way Christmass, New Year’s Eve and Epiphany are celebrated traditionally both in Maramures and its neighboring areas.

Come see it for yourself!