The cemetery is surrounded by an Orthodox church in Săpânța. It owes its name, The Merry Cemetery, to the unique wooden tombstones that are painted in colorful colors and decorated with scenes from the lives of the people who are buried here. Most of them also have poems that humorously describe the deceased.
In total, there are about 800 tombstones in the cemetery. They all have the shape of a cross topped with a wooden roof. Some are painted and decorated on one side only, others on both. Usually, one part describes the life of the deceased, and the other part describes the cause of death.
The oldest epitaph dates from 1935. Its author was a local artist, Stan Ioan Pătraș. Until his death, he made several dozen more tombstones of this type. Most of them have a characteristic, archaic spelling and contain spelling mistakes. After Pătraș's death, another artist, Dumitru Pop Tincu, took up the preparation of the crosses.
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