Dubai Butterfly Garden opening had been expected for more than a year and the doors flinged open at last. It happened March 24, 2015.

The official web-site www.dubaibutterflygarden.com says that the whole complex will be consist of nine covered semi-sphere domes connected to each other with passages. At the moment all of them have been ready. Full of light and air-conditioned pavilions are florid with natural flowers and plants. Inside these pavilions you can see all kinds of tropical butterflies: from the Philippines, Costa Rica, Columbia and many other countries.

The Butterfly Garden adjoins Dubai Miracle Garden on the right. So, it does make sense to visit two admired places. The main thing is to come earlier to have enough time to see everything.

Butterflies Garden covered domes operate 9am to 5:30pm all year round. The Miracle Garden is seasonal. It is visitable from November till May. Opening hours: 9am to 9pm on weekdays and 9 am to 11pm at weekends (on Friday and Saturday).

There are different types of tickets and they can be purchased in separate ticket offices.

Dubai Butterflies Garden welcomes you with a small lane leading you to a cozy covered café. From the café you will get into a spacious darkened gallery decorated by numerous butterfly panels. You feel as if you were hit like a ton of bricks.

To begin with, all the panels are extremely beautiful. All the butterflies on the panels are matched in colour, shape and size making bizarre compositions. Highly unusual and very striking.

But. All these fragile creatures are dead. I was looking at each panel trying to understand if thousands of beautiful and scarce moths were worth killing for a work of art?

Jumping ahead of myself I will say: many tropical butterflies live only seven days. Then they die. And only after being dead they become a part of these pictures. Alive ones are untouchable. Whether or no but their explanation calmed me down a little.

At last, we are inside of butterfly dome – a small piece of Amazonia. A sound record is playing birds singing. Ivy and philodendron lianas are drooping from the ceiling. The floor is covered with chrysanthemums, figs, tuftroots and other beautiful flowers with difficult names to pronounce.

If you are a butterflies’ admirer you will be definitely thrilled. Huge tropical beauties are noticed everywhere – on the walls and lianas, on the rocks and flowers.

Some garden dwellers are of a kid’s palm in size. Fluorescent-yellow, azure, black, white, all sorts are hovering above your heads quietly touching down on your shoulders and your back.

Children are screaming with delight trying to catch these flying fairies. Such harsh treatment is prohibited, but can one follow? It is not surprising that some butterflies have shabby and broken wings.

The brightest and the most noticeable butterflies in the garden are Blue Morpho butterflies. Bright-blue-wing beauties. They are the wildest because all visitors aged 12 months and elder want to catch them and take a better look.

Landing at a food tray with nectar and sweet fruit in it, the Morphoes open their sky wings just for a moment and immediately shut them showing their dark-brown flip side to a camera.

In Ancient Greece butterflies considered to be deceased’s souls. Both a butterfly and a soul were called Psyche.

In Ancient Mexico butterflies belonged to “Prince of flowers” Xochipilli’s attributes who was the God of flora, spring and love. A butterfly did with the sun and was a wavering fire symbol. Cut with stone scissors (Itztli) butterfly is Itzpapalotl goddess, the night spirit of flaming stars but also a symbol of women died at childbirth souls.

Ancient Celts believed a butterfly to personify a soul and a fire.

For Maori, New Zealand native-born populace, a butterfly is a soul.

Slavic people associate a butterfly with a soul. Oftentimes people suppose a butterfly to be a diseased man soul or a harbinger of death.

In Japan a butterfly associates with a young beautiful girl. A hovering butterfly around another one means domestic harmony. A white butterfly is an umbra.

In China a butterfly means immortality, happiness and summer. It is a symbol of lovers either.