Memorial Victimelor Comunismului şi Rezistenţei
Sighet's former prison opened in 1997 as the Memorial Victimelor Comunismului şi Rezistenţei(Memorial Museum of the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance). The cells have been converted into exhibition spaces, covering the oppression of the communist era; little is in English but the general outlines are clear enough. In addition to memorials to Iuliu Maniu and Gheorghe Brătianu, the prison’s two most famous inmates, there are displays on collectivization, forced labour on the Danube–Black Sea Canal, the deportations to the Bărăgan and the demolition of the heart of Bucharest during the 1980s. There’s fascinating coverage of the feared Securitate, and another cell-full of Ceauşescu-oriented memorabilia (aptly entitled “Communist Kitsch”), including paintings, busts, lists of honorary doctorates and photos of him lording it with world leaders such as Castro and Nixon. In the courtyard is an underground memorial hall, its walls inscribed with the names of some eight thousand people imprisoned under communism, and a dozen or so uninspiring bronze statues.
The prison of the ministers
Sighet prison operated from 1898 until 1977, achieving a notoriety gained by few others. Its nadir was between 1950 and 1955, when political prisoners (former government ministers, generals, academics and bishops) were held here so that they could be “protected” by the Red Army or rapidly spirited away into the Soviet Union if the communist regime was threatened. The 72 cells held 180 members of the prewar establishment, at least two-thirds of them aged over 60; they were appallingly treated and, not surprisingly, many died. The most important figure to perish here was Iuliu Maniu, regarded as the greatest living Romanian when he was arrested in 1947 (at the age of 73) and now seen as a secular martyr – the only uncorrupt politician of the prewar period, organizer of the 1944 coup, and notably reluctant to pursue revenge against Transylvania’s Hungarians after the war.
The leading Hungarian victim was Árón Márton, Roman Catholic bishop of Alba Iulia, who opposed the persecution of the Jews in 1944 and of the Uniates in 1949, and was imprisoned from 1950 to 1955, surviving until 1980. Others who died in Sighet included two of the three members of the Brătianu family imprisoned here – Dinu, president of the National Liberal Party and Finance Minister (1933–34), and Gheorghe, historian and second-division politician – as well as Mihail Manoilescu, theoretician of Romanian fascism, and Foreign Minister in 1940. Their graves can be seen at the Cimitrul Săracilor or Paupers’ Cemetery, a couple of kilometres west on the Săpânţa road, where fir trees mark out the outline of Romania, with an altar and cenotaph on the spot representing Sighet. In 2012, the Portal of Memory, a bell tower evoking an open book, was built nearer the road, with a viewing platform.
The remains of Jewish Sighet
One block west of the Memorial Museum along Strada Şincai you’ll find a monument to the 38,000 Maramureş Jews rounded up by Hungarian gendarmes and deported in 1944; there’s also a plaque to them at the railway station, where they were herded into cattle trucks. Not far from the monument, on Strada Izei, is the Jewish cemetery (Mon–Fri & Sun 8am–7pm), where pilgrims still visit the graves of Hasidic elders.
One synagogue, dating from 1904, survives at Strada Basarabia 10, on the far side of Piaţa Libertăţii (Mon–Fri & Sun 9am–2pm). Note that neither the cemetery nor the synagogue open reliably and you may need to contact the Jewish Community Center (Comunitatea Evreilor din Sighet) at Strada Basarabia 8.
Winter Customs Festival
Held on December 27, Sighet’s Winter Customs Festival (Festivalul Datinilor de Iarna) is a vibrant display of music, costumes and customs, illustrating the enduring influence of pre-Christian beliefs. It opens with brightly decorated horses galloping down the main street, followed by up to fifty groups from villages all over Maramureş, Bucovina, Transylvania and Ukraine slowly making their way down the street to present their song or skit to the mayor. Thereafter, a rather mishmash play begins with soldiers arriving to tell King Herod about the rumour of a saviour, while bears roll around the ground to raise the earth spirits. Horsemen are called to find the infant child and men bring heavy iron cowbells to drive away evil spirits, represented by multicoloured, animist dracus. Active throughout is the clapping wooden goat (capra), warding off evil spirits to ensure the return of spring. In the afternoon there are concerts both on the streets and in the theatre, lasting until early evening when more impromptu celebrations take over.
The Cosău valley
Between Giuleşti and Berbeşti a road leads east up the Cosău valley, the most interesting of all in Maramureş. Just 2km southeast of Fereşti (where the wooden church was raised in the 1790s) is tranquil little CORNEŞTI, where the church (painted in 1775) dates in part from 1406, making it the second oldest in Maramureş; there’s a watermill here, beside which women beat clothes with carved wooden laundry bats by the river, often improvising songs and verses as they work, using a distinctive local technique called singing “with knots” (cu noduri), in which the voice is modulated by tapping the glottis while the singer doesn’t breathe for lengthy periods.
Continuing south, you come to three villages about 4km apart, with two wooden churches apiece. At sprawling CĂLINEŞTI, the beautiful Susani (Upper) or Băndreni church, high above the road just north of the junction, was built and painted in the 1780s. The Josani (Lower) or Caieni church, built in 1628, is one of the loveliest in Maramureş, with its huge nineteenth-century porch and beautiful internal paintings by Ponehalski. It’s best reached by the path across the fields next to house no. 385, on the road east to Bârsana. There are also wooden vâltoare or whirlpools (used for giving woollen blankets back their loft) and horincă stills at nos. 96 and 129.
SÂRBI has two unassuming little wooden churches – the Susani to the north, built in 1638 and painted by Ponehalski in 1760, with icons by Radu Munteanu and a beautifully carved door frame; and the Josani, to the south, built in 1703 – and some fine examples of traditional technology. At no. 181 you can visit a fine watermill, two fulling mills, a vâltoare (whirlpool) and a horincă still, as well as various workshops; it’s signposted as “Ansamblul de arhitectură tehnică populară” and is now rather over-touristy, with a new bar – better to stop immediately north at no. 173, where the family are happy to show you their fulling mill, vâltoare and still, as well as the loom in the house. There’s also a maker of opinci (sandals) at no. 143, at the village’s south end.
Finally, BUDEŞTI is a large village but remarkably unspoiled, with even its new houses largely built in the traditional style. In the centre, the Josani church, built in 1643, contains the chain-mail coat of the outlaw Pintea the Brave. Its frescoes are among Alexandru Ponehalski’s finest, especially the Last Judgement. The Susani church, dating from 1586, has particularly fine paintings from the 1760s, also by Ponehalski, and has been gradually extended westwards, so that the tower is now almost central.
The Vişeu valley
The railway east from Sighet follows the River Tisza for 25km before heading up the beautiful Vişeu valley; the hills between the Tisza and Vişeu valleys are inhabited by Huţul or Ruthenian people, the archetypal inhabitants of the Carpathians, who speak a dialect of Ukrainian incorporating many Romanian words. Local buses from Sighet run along the DN18 through the Ukrainian-populated village of Rona De Jos to terminate at the tiny spa of Coştiui, 22km from Sighet, which has a motel and căsuţe. Beyond the turning to Coştiui the road climbs to a pass in lovely beech forest; from Leordina (once home to Harvey Keitel’s parents), 28km southeast of Rona de Jos, a rough side road follows the River Ruscova north into a Huţul enclave. There’s still a synagogue in Ruscova, once home to British politician Michael Howard’s father, while in Poienile de sub Munte, the centre of the area, there’s a Ukrainian-style wooden church dating from 1788 and a couple of guesthouses. Back in the Vişeu valley, trains continue 10km east from Leordina to VIŞEU DE JOS, then turn south towards Transylvania; from Vişeu de Jos, passenger trains no longer run up the branch line to Borşa, but there are regular buses as far as Vişeu de Sus, and fewer on to Borşa.
Vişeu de Sus
Just east of Vişeu de Jos is VIŞEU DE SUS, a logging town that’s growing into a tourist town thanks to the popularity of the steam train from here up the steep Vaser valley, with new guesthouses that appeal more to Romanians in search of comfort than foreigners seeking a wooden-house-and-farm-animals experience. Diagonally across the main Strada 22 Decembrie from the museum is a wooden Uniate church built in 1993–5 by Gavrilă Hotico of Ieud.
Mocăniţa Narrow-Gauge Railway
The narrow-gauge railway up the wild Vaser valley, towards the Ukrainian border, is still used by diesel-hauled logging trains; in addition, up to five tourist trains run daily as far as Paltin, 18km up the valley. These are hauled by small steam locomotives – known as mocăniţa, meaning “little mountain shepherd” – which have been restored by enthusiasts, the oldest dating from 1910.
There’s a pleasant café (with wi-fi and toilets) in a typical wooden house at the departure point, with a small exhibition on the town’s vanished Jewish community (about forty percent of the population in 1940). There are also three preserved steam locomotives here, including a huge standard-gauge beast (a 2-10-0) near the train-hotel.
Along the route, you may see deer drinking from the river, unperturbed by the trains. The River Vaser, rich in trout and umber, descends rapidly through the 50km-long valley; its whirling waters have begun to attract kayakers to logging settlements like Măcârlău, also the start of a rugged trail over the Jupania ridge of the Maramureş mountains to the former mining centre of Baia Borşa, just north of Borşa. You can also take bikes and cycle the 9km back from Novăţ station.