Finland’s nuclear bunkers with room for 4m people
Ed Cumming takes a tour of Helsinki’s timely fortification against an attack
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 25m below ground in a cavernous space hollowed out of the Precambrian bedrock beneath the city, and is designed to withstand nuclear, biological and chemical attacks.
The clambering children may not realise it, but they are in one of the safest playgrounds on earth.
Most of the time, this is a familyfriendly 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: “VÄESTÖNSUOJA SKYDDSRUM”, or “defence shelter”. In the event of an emergency, the arena would revert to being the Merihaka bomb shelter, subterranean living quarters where up to 6,000 people could exist for weeks, or even months.
In rooms off to the side, closed to the public, are stores of beds, air filtration systems, temporary loos and other survival essentials. Between the inside space and the outside world are two layers of cobalt-blue blast doors, each a foot thick. One is designed to stop a blast; the other to seal off the atmosphere.
“Preparation is part of our nature and it’s in our bones.” says Jani Pitkänen, rescue commander of Helsinki’s Rescue Department. “We have a strong will for it.”
He is not overstating things. 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 separate locations.
Most of these are private. By law, any building more than 1,200 sq m must make provision for a shelter. In addition to these are 44 large public shelters, built and maintained by the government. The Merihaka is one of the biggest. For the men and women in charge of the bunkers, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a tragic vindication of their principles.
During peacetime, the shelters have civilian functions, but they must be only 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, shows me around. His role is to drill other officials in the procedures for an emergency. According to Rask, 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 make their way to the nearest shelter, leaving pets behind but bringing food and clothing. No alcohol would be allowed, and mobile reception is limited. “We are completely analogue,” says Rask. “Sheltering is not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to keep you alive.”
Since the invasion there has been an uptick of public interest in defence strategy, with increasingly more people signing up for preparedness courses. Hence, Rask’s pragmatic view of the world. “From a civil defence point of view, a nuclear weapon is just a weapon like any other,” he says.
“There is still the radiation to be taken care of, but it is manageable in many cases.” In the car park, he points out that cars could be useful in an emergency: “They are comfortable, private places where families can sit.”
Rask is coy about the details, but he implies that the authorities have 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 that the Finns are prepared for above all – although it is never mentioned explicitly in official statements – being invaded by Russia.
Finland shares an 830-mile border with its bellicose neighbour, and since the 1940s has been traumatised by the memory of the Winter War of 1939. Foreshadowing what has happened in Ukraine, at the end of November 1939, Soviet troops poured across the Finnish border.
They expected little resistance, but found themselves up against hostile, well-trained soldiers, equipped for the conditions, which saw temperatures plummet to -43C, and spoiling to repel the invaders. Russia eventually forced Finland to negotiate, but at a terrible cost of more than 300,000 casualties.
Since then, Finland has prided itself on making the cost of another invasion impossibly high. This week, motivated by the events in Ukraine, it looks set to apply for membership of Nato, but it has long been ready to go it alone.
Its bunker system is only one part of a wide-ranging policy of “total defence”, in which the whole country could be mobilised in the event of an attack. 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 – nearly a seventh of the country’s total population – as well as a wartime army of 280,000.
While other European nations rowed back on their military spending when the Iron Curtain fell, Finland has kept its high, with modern tanks, artillery and aircraft. In March, it finalised an order for 64 F-35 fighter planes worth nearly £7 billion. Events in Ukraine have made this look astute.
“We have been monitoring [the invasion] very closely and trying to learn from what is happening, wondering if we can do better and what the lessons are to learn,” says Kimmo Kohvakka, director general of Finland’s Department of Rescue Services, which oversees civil defence.
“Perhaps it’s self-congratulatory to say, but it’s clear [from Ukraine] that war today is still a destruction of civilian buildings,” he says. “These are not precision strikes.
“You have to have infrastructure like this to protect your people,” he continues. “If you concentrate too much on one aspect you might miss something else. Finland has a wide spectrum of threats analysed. We build our preparedness so that whatever may come, we are ready.”
All this preparation comes at a price, but the Finnish public has never seriously questioned its defence
‘Sheltering is not supposed to be fun – it’s supposed to keep you alive’
policies. Partly this is because of the obviousness of the threat, but also because the cooperation may confer other, less tangible advantages. Earlier this year, the UN’S Sustainable Development Solutions Network ranked Finland the happiest country in the world for the fifth year running.
Its public institutions enjoy high levels of public trust, maybe because so many of the citizenry are involved in it, whether as office civil defence representatives, or as soldiers.
Although it has had a longstanding policy of neutrality in Europeanrussian affairs, the war in Ukraine has forced a rethink. In February, the prime minister Sanna Marin announced Finland would supply Ukraine with weaponry. Recent polls have shown a consistent rise in support for joining Nato.
“We are a small nation, almost like an island, and thinking about the history and our geopolitics, the public have understood it’s important to have a good safety and security system,” says Kohvakka. “It costs something, but so far the public and politicians have supported it.”
If Finland does decide to apply for Nato membership next week, and is accepted, the existing members will gain a fully trained and highly prepared new ally, bristling with modern weaponry, with exceptional subterranean sports facilities.
“I think we would probably keep the soft play area, at least for the first few days,” says Rask. “A happy child is a happy parent, even in the worst case scenario.”