Maramures by Antwan Janssen

About "Maramures"

by Antwan Janssen

About the artwork

The Maramureş is a very traditional region in the northwest of Romania where many wooden houses and churches can be found. The landscape of Maramureş is very rural with hills and meadows where you will see many haystacks.

Peasant culture is still thriving and there is an interesting mix of traditional music, handmade wooden structures and colourful textiles to experience. It's like stepping back in time (in a good way). This is where true Romanian tradition comes more alive than elsewhere in the country.

Especially the wooden churches, Sapinta and the traditional villages are worth visiting. Most of the churches and houses are completely made out of wood by the inhabitants.

Maramures is one of the most remote and at the same time backward regions of Europe. The mountainous border region with Hungary and Ukraine is so isolated that it escaped collectivisation after the Second World War. When the Romanian dictator Ceausescu 'systematized' villages by flattening them and putting horribly ugly apartment blocks in their place, Maramures was forgotten again. Even in the provincial capital Baia Mare there are hardly any high-rise buildings. There is no sign of the recent westernisation in the Eastern Bloc after 1990 either. Many people here live as they did a hundred years ago. The horse cart is still a common means of transport, along the road you sometimes see a spinning wheel in action, women wear wide clothes with embroidery, men wear hats with a narrow brim.