The story
Sighet Winter Traditions Festival in Sighetu Marmatiei
The Marmatia Festival of Winter Customs and Traditions has run uninterrupted in Sighetu Marmatiei since 1969, bringing costumed caroler groups, masked performers and goat-dance troupes from across Maramures and beyond into a December 27 procession that recreates the region's Christmas-to-Epiphany folk customs for locals and visiting folklorists alike.
In Sighetu Marmatiei, a town in Romania's northern Maramures region long known for preserving folk custom more intact than much of the rest of the country, the Marmatia Festival of Winter Customs and Traditions has run every December 27 without interruption since 1969, a continuity of more than fifty-five years spanning the communist period and the decades since.