WHO WE ARE
The history of Mindo began in 2008, when we created our first mini farm for growing tropical butterflies and an online store for selling live butterflies in St. Petersburg. Growing butterflies for sale was initially an intermediate stage for us, since the main task facing us was the construction of the first Live Butterfly Garden in Russia.
For two years, we conducted numerous experiments, developed and tested new technologies to optimize the methods of cultivation, and most importantly, the conditions for keeping tropical butterflies in capital buildings. After all, it is the conditions in which the butterflies are kept that determine how they will behave: whether they will happily flutter around the garden or sit in a daze on the walls. This was the most delicate and lengthy process, there was nowhere to adopt experience, because no one had done this in our country before us. But, in the end, having put in a lot of effort, we managed to cope with the task - the butterflies began to flutter in the conditions we created almost as well as in the jungle!
On March 15, 2010, in St. Petersburg, on Ropshinskaya Street, 17, the first permanent exhibition was opened - the Garden of Living Butterflies "Mindo", which almost immediately became extremely popular with the city residents, significantly exceeding our expectations: the premises, which initially seemed quite spacious to us, simply could not accommodate everyone who wanted to come.
During the first months of work, in addition to butterflies, other inhabitants began to appear in our Garden: birds, pigs, squirrels, aquatic inhabitants. Some were brought to us by visitors who wanted to place their pets in comfortable conditions, some we acquired ourselves. All of them fit very harmoniously, both in the interiors and in the very idea of the Garden of Eden, and most importantly - having maximum freedom of movement and communication with each other, our inhabitants got along well with each other and very well received the attention of visitors.
This gave us the idea of creating a new exhibition format, which was given the name - Tropical Complex. It was no longer just a butterfly garden, but a whole ecosystem, which included jungle thickets, ponds, swamps and waterfalls, elements of the life of tropical peoples, historical landmarks and much more. It was decided to combine all this in one space and by the end of 2011 we began construction of the first Tropical Complex "Mindo" in Russia, on Pravda Street, 12.
After 8 months of construction work and timed to coincide with International Children's Day, on June 1, 2012, the doors of our new establishment were opened to the residents of St. Petersburg.
For us, the process of building a butterfly garden or a tropical complex, as well as any other project, is a non-stop flight of fantasy, it is akin to painting a picture, this process does not end at the moment of opening. After the opening, when the first visitors have already arrived, the next stage begins. Almost during the entire time of the Complex's operation, we were constantly adding something, changing something, improving - there is an endless field for creativity. But all the experience gained in one project, we immediately put into the project of the next. Thus, each of our next projects becomes a step higher, richer, more extensive than the previous one, without in any way diminishing the merits of its predecessor. Each of our projects has its own unique soul.
In 2015, we built the Tropical Complex "Mindo" in Vyborg, and in 2016 the Garden of Live Butterflies "Mindo" in Khabarovsk. We also held several temporary exhibitions of live butterflies in Pskov, Vologda, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Birobidzhan, Belogorsk, and Svobodny.
Also, in 2016, we started developing a completely new direction - an exhibition of live ants. And on September 1, 2016, we opened the first full-scale exhibition in Russia, "City of Ants". For the first time, people were able to see an entire city, on a scale of 1:87, populated by ants that live in apartments in houses, go to the pumping station for water, unload railway cars with grain and carry all this along the roads, among cars, to their apartments.
In 2018, we designed and by 2020 completed the work on creating three unique stands for the world's only full-scale ant museum, at VDNKh in Moscow. The stands we made have no analogues in the world and were highly appreciated by leading specialists of world zoos and insectariums.
As already mentioned, each of our next projects is a big step forward. This time we built a city for a colony of thousands of ants, in which trains, carousels, elevators move, and all this is controlled by visitors using interactive software control units. The city changes times of day, at night the windows of apartments with ants, street lighting, car headlights, etc. flash, everything like in a real city.
The brand - "Mindo" has long been widely known not only in St. Petersburg, but also throughout Russia and beyond. Many novice organizers of live butterfly exhibitions from other regions of the Russian Federation turn to us for consultations, come to our Gardens to gain experience before taking on such a difficult and troublesome business as growing and exhibiting tropical butterflies and exotic birds. After all, we once traveled all over Europe and Central America, visiting the best live butterfly exhibitions and farms for their cultivation.
Our museums of live butterflies, exotic birds and animals are not just exhibition business projects, as is often the case in our commercialized world, they are, first of all, a picturesque picture that has absorbed the best and most beautiful from the world of butterflies and birds in particular, and from the world of Nature in general. Our living museums are a collective image of divine natural beauty, history and culture of the peoples living in the tropical regions of the globe, their traditions and rituals.
And all this is done in order to give people who have not yet had the opportunity to independently visit remote corners of the Earth the opportunity to enrich their souls with absolutely new emotions, unprecedented colors and unheard-of sounds that our generous Nature is so full of.
And as for any artist painting his picture, for us the most important reward is the good feedback from clients about our work, sincere smiles and heartfelt gratitude.
With love to Nature and our work,
The creators of the Tropical Complex "Mindo"