Sighetu Marmației

Sighet lies at the confluence of the Iza and the Tisa, in the historical region of Maramureș. A settlement is recorded from the 11th century and the town itself from 1326; by 1352 it was a free royal town and the capital of Máramaros County in the Kingdom of Hungary. It later belonged to the Principality of Transylvania and returned to Habsburg Hungary in 1711. In 1910 it had about 21,000 inhabitants, most of them Hungarian speakers, and almost 8,000 Jews; in 1920 Jews were the largest single group, and Hasidic rabbis of the Teitelbaum dynasty, later leaders of the Satmar movement, were born or served here.

On 22 November 1918 an assembly of Maramureș Romanians met in the central square and sent delegates to Alba Iulia to vote for union with Romania; the Romanian army arrived in 1919 and the Treaty of Trianon confirmed the change in 1920. The Second Vienna Award gave the town to Hungary in 1940. Jews were deported in 1941, and after Passover 1944 almost 13,000 were crowded into a ghetto and sent to Auschwitz in four transports in May; among them was the teenage Elie Wiesel, born here in 1928. Romanian and Soviet forces took the town in October 1944.

Under communism the prison became a place of political repression: in the 1950s and 1960s the Securitate held former ministers, bishops and other "class enemies" there, and many died, among them the former prime minister Iuliu Maniu. Apartment blocks went up from 1960 and a large wood-processing plant, opened in 1962, employed over 6,000 people, but it declined after 1989.

Sighet is a meeting point of peoples. Romanians are the majority, with smaller Hungarian, Ukrainian and Roma communities, and the town has Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, Reformed and Ukrainian Orthodox churches. Its Jewish past is remembered through the synagogue that remains in use, the Jewish cemetery and the museum in Elie Wiesel's childhood home, and in 2014 the town marked 70 years since the deportations with a klezmer concert, services and a memorial gathering.

The memorial in the old prison, part of the same national memorial as the International Centre for Studies into Communism in Bucharest, has made the town a place of national remembrance. Beside it, the open-air village museum keeps more than 30 wooden houses of the 17th to 19th centuries and a 16th-century wooden church from the Maramureș villages.

Those customs are the high point of the year. Late December brings carolling and masked processions to the Maramureș villages, and on 27 December the town's Marmația festival of winter customs fills its streets. In early August the town holds a festival of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Sighetu Marmației had about 32,800 people at the 2021 census, down from about 37,600 in 2011. Romanians make up around seven in ten of the population, with Hungarians, Ukrainians and Roma among the minorities, and the town administers five outlying villages.

Sighet is considered the cultural and economic centre of historical Maramureș. The wood industry that dominated the communist-era economy has shrunk to smaller private firms, which employed some 3,500 people in 2012. Shops cluster along the main street and in supermarkets at the edge of town, and the daily central market brings in produce and crafts from the villages; a livestock market is held on the first Monday of each month.

The border is part of everyday life. The old bridge over the Tisa links Sighet with Solotvyno in Ukraine, a crossing open to pedestrians and cyclists. In the surrounding villages farm work and church and family feasts set the rhythm of the year.

Maramureș cooking is mountain food built on milk, pork, potatoes and cornmeal. Mămăligă, the maize-flour porridge that is a staple across Romania, is eaten with sheep's cheese and sour cream, and slănină — salt-cured pork fat, sometimes seasoned with paprika — is a standby of the village table. Sarmale, cabbage leaves rolled round a filling of minced meat and rice, are Romania's national dish.

Tochitură, pork cut into small cubes and cooked slowly in its own fat and juices, usually in a cast-iron pot, is served with mămăligă and eggs, and the sour soups called ciorbă begin many meals. Village guesthouses are the place to try home cooking.

The drink is horincă, the local name for plum brandy, often distilled twice and very strong. In town, the choice is mostly cafés, bars and quick food along the main street, while the market sells fresh cheese and produce from the villages.