Finland prepared for any potential attack
Country has enough bunkers for 4M people
With its brightly coloured slides, trampolines and tunnels, the soft play area at the Hakaniemi Arena, near the centre of Helsinki, looks much like any other. The difference is that it lies 25 metres below ground in a cavernous space hollowed out of the bedrock beneath the city, and is designed to withstand nuclear, biological and chemical attack.
The clambering children may not realize it, but they are in one of the safest playgrounds on earth.
Most of the time, this is a family-friendly sports centre. Above ground, the only visible clue to its second identity is a small orange and blue triangle on the wall by the entrance that states: “VAESTONSUOJA” and “SKYDDSRUM,” or “defence shelter” in the country’s official languages, Finnish and Swedish. In the event of an emergency, the arena would become the Merihaka bomb shelter for up to 6,000 people.
In rooms off to the side, closed to the public, are stores of beds, air filtration systems, temporary toilet facilities and other essentials. Between the inside space and the outside world are two layers of blast doors, each 35 cm thick. One is designed to stop a blast; the other to seal off the atmosphere.
Helsinki alone has more than 5,500 bunkers, with space for 900,000 people. Finland as a whole has shelter spaces for 4.4 million, in more than 54,000 locations.
Most of these are private. By law, any building more than 1,200 square metres (13,000 sq. ft.) must make provision for a shelter. In addition to these are 44 large public shelters, built and maintained by the government.
The shelters have civilian functions, but must be semi-permanent and able to be stripped away within 72 hours — storage rooms, sports halls, swimming pools (which can be drained).
Tomi Rask, a civil defence instructor, says the public would be informed via television, radio, a website and a special app, as well as outdoor sirens, which are tested every month.
People would bring only food and clothing. Mobile reception is limited. “We are completely analog,” says Rask.
“Sheltering is not supposed to be fun,” he says with typical Finnish pragmatism. “It’s supposed to keep you alive.”
Rask implies that there are ways of keeping the population fed and watered for weeks, if not months.
While there is talk about chemical accidents and natural disasters, there is one outcome the Finns are prepared for above all — although it is never mentioned explicitly in official statements: being invaded by Russia, with which it shares a 1,340-km border.
At the end of November 1939 Soviet troops poured across the border, expecting little resistance. As in Ukraine, they found themselves up against welltrained soldiers, equipped for local conditions (including temperatures of -43C), and spoiling to repel the invaders. Russia eventually forced Finland to negotiate, but at a cost of more than 300,000 casualties.
Since then, Finland has made the cost of another invasion impossibly high.
It has implemented a wide-ranging policy of “total defence.” Every bridge, tunnel and overpass must be built with charge pits, where explosives could be placed if needed to slow an invader.
Small roads can be turned into runways.
Men must complete national military service, although women can volunteer, and there are 700,000 reservists as well as a wartime army of 280,000, from a population of 5.5 million.
Finland has kept its military spending high, with modern tanks, artillery and aircraft — in March, it finalized an order for 64 F-35 fighter planes.
In February, Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced Finland would supply Ukraine with weaponry, and recent polls show a rise in support for joining NATO.
Existing members would gain a fully trained and highly prepared new ally, bristling with modern weaponry, with exceptional subterranean sports facilities.