Maramureș & Crișana

Maramureș grew up as an enclosed basin on the upper Tisza, where Romanian villages lived under their own voivodes and a class of small free nobles within the medieval Hungarian kingdom. Two of its leaders, Dragoș and later Bogdan, crossed the mountains in the 14th century and founded the principality of Moldavia. The region stayed under Hungarian and then Habsburg rule, and its remoteness preserved a village world that elsewhere in Europe disappeared. After 1918 the land north of the Tisza went to Czechoslovakia and is now part of Ukraine, splitting historic Maramureș in two.

Crișana, on the edge of the Great Hungarian Plain, was more exposed. Oradea (Nagyvárad) was an important bishopric from the 11th century and the shrine of King Ladislaus I. The Treaty of Oradea of 1538 divided Hungary between rival kings, the Ottomans held the city from 1660 to 1692, and the Habsburgs then rebuilt it as a Baroque garrison and cathedral town, while the Károlyi counts brought Swabian German settlers to the Satu Mare area. Baia Mare and the surrounding hills were mined for gold and silver from the Middle Ages.

The whole region passed to Romania in 1920, returned to Hungary between 1940 and 1944 — when its large Jewish community, including the teenage Elie Wiesel of Sighet, was deported to Auschwitz — and then came back. Under communism the prison at Sighet held many of the interwar political elite, dozens of whom died there. In 2000 a tailings dam at a Baia Mare gold-processing plant burst, sending cyanide into the Tisza and the Danube.

Maramureș is where Romanian village tradition is most visible. Houses in the Mara, Cosău and Iza valleys are fronted by massive carved wooden gates. Woodcarving, weaving and the building of wooden houses and churches remain living crafts. Religion runs deep, with both Orthodox and Greek Catholic parishes, and a Ukrainian-speaking minority lives in the upper valleys.

Winter customs remain strong, with carollers going from house to house at Christmas. The Oaș country around Negrești-Oaș is a distinct ethnographic area with its own traditions.

Crișana is more mixed. Hungarians form a large minority in Bihor and Satu Mare, with Reformed and Catholic churches in most towns, and the Swabians of the Carei area keep a Catholic German heritage. Oradea has a strong Hungarian literary tradition — the poet Endre Ady worked as a journalist here — and a prosperous, orderly reputation.

Oradea, with about 180,000 people, is the region's largest city, and one of Romania's more prosperous cities. Baia Mare has about 110,000 people and Satu Mare about 90,000; Sighetu Marmației, Carei and Borșa are smaller towns.

Baia Mare's mines have closed and the city has turned to manufacturing, while Satu Mare lives from factories and cross-border trade. In the Maramureș villages the economy is small farming, forestry, woodwork and a growing number of guesthouses, supported by money sent home from Western Europe; many people spend part of the year working in France, Italy or Spain and build new houses at home.

Village life follows the seasons: haymaking in July and August, when whole families work the meadows and build the tall stacks, the harvest of plums for horincă in autumn, and church and family feasts throughout. In the towns the pace is ordinary Central European provincial life, with Oradea's Republicii Street as the evening promenade.

Maramureș food is mountain fare built on milk, pork, potatoes and cornmeal: balmoș and mămăligă with sheep's cheese, sour cream and fried bacon, cabbage rolls, and soups soured with fermented bran or vinegar. Guesthouses serve home-made sausages, slănină cured pork fat, pickled vegetables and cheese from the family's own cows or sheep.

The drink is horincă, the local name for plum brandy, often distilled twice and very strong, poured for guests at any hour. The region is also rich in berries, mushrooms and forest honey.

Crișana's cooking shows Hungarian influence: gulyás soup, paprika stews, stuffed peppers, and cakes and strudels in Oradea's pastry shops. The hills of Bihor and Satu Mare produce some wine, and the Swabian villages keep German baking traditions.

The wooden churches of Maramureș are the region's great sight. Eight of them, including those at Ieud, Bârsana, Budești, Desești, Poienile Izei, Rogoz and Șurdești, are together a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with steep shingled roofs, tall spires and painted interiors from the 18th century. The Iza valley and the Mara and Cosău valleys hold the most traditional villages, and the modern Bârsana Monastery shows the style continuing. Săpânța's Merry Cemetery, begun by the carver Stan Ioan Pătraș in the 1930s, lies close to the Tisza.

Sighetu Marmației has the Memorial of the Victims of Communism in its old prison, Elie Wiesel's house and a village museum. From Vișeu de Sus the Mocănița steam train runs up the Vaser valley into the Maramureș Mountains, and Borșa is the base for the Rodna mountains and the Horses' Waterfall. Baia Mare has a medieval tower, a mineralogy museum and an old town square.

In Crișana, Oradea's centre is lined with Art Nouveau buildings, including the Black Eagle Palace with its glass-roofed arcade, alongside the Moon Church, the Baroque Catholic cathedral and bishop's palace, and the restored fortress. The thermal spa of Băile Felix lies just south, and the Bear Cave at Chișcău lies in the Apuseni foothills. Satu Mare has the Dacia Hotel and the Firemen's Tower, and Carei a Károlyi family castle.