Beneath Finland’s surface, a concrete maze to keep enemies out

He needn’t have worried. Finland, which has a 1340-km border with Russia, has an elaborate and efficient network of underground bomb shelters across the country. Finland’s eastern perimeter represents the external border of the European Union with Russia, and now, after Finland joined the organisation last year, it is also NATO’s easternmost frontline adjacent to Russia. Ever since the offensive against Ukraine, tension has been rising between Russia and Finland and it is one of the chief reasons why Finland sought membership of NATO, the intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states—30 European and two North American.

The elderly gentleman wasn’t the only one worried about his family’s safety. The civil defence headquarters in Helsinki as well as its regional units across the tiny nation with a population of 5.5 million were swamped with phone calls, messages, and visits by residents seeking assurance on the infrastructure for protecting and sheltering people.

Everyone in Finland is aware of the existence of an elaborate and carefully created network of underground shelters and related infrastructure but it is hardly obvious to the casual visitor.

On a sunny yet crisply cold weekday morning recently, I took a tram ride to the city’s iconic Hakaniemi Market Square, which opened in 1897 and is connected to the city centre by a bridge that runs over a strait. Finland’s long winter was finally over, the snow had melted, and the open-air cafes and restaurants had just reopened in the square. Helsinki is a city where urbanity and nature blend uniquely. Art Nouveau buildings, bustling market squares, and museums coexist with tranquil parks and a sprawling seafront. A short bicycle ride can take you deep into nature trails in forests, which cover 75% of Finland’s area. But it is underneath the city that there exists a totally different world.

At one end of the market square I met Nina Järvenkylä, a former journalist who now works at the civil defence department’s rescue division. A steel elevator takes us underground where, 20 metres below the surface, tunnels carved into the bedrock zig zag in a network that houses bunkers, which can shelter thousands of inhabitants of the city in case of an emergency. The tunnels zig zag so that in the event of an explosion, the effects of the blast can be absorbed by the walls and not spread to the main shelter areas.

We are at the Merihaka shelter whose underground walls are 1.2 metres (4 ft.) thick. At the entrance to the bunkers are heavy metal doors that are bomb-proof and weigh nearly 13 tonnes. There is a chamber where those who are contaminated by gas or other substances can shower and change into fresh clothes before entering the inner sanctum, which is protected by similar doors that are blast proof, gas proof and radiation proof. Järvenkylä shows me stacks of aluminium

frames that can be quickly assembled into bunk beds, and basic but functional toilets that can be easily set up to cater for hundreds of people.

During an emergency, residents in the area can climb down sturdy steel staircases that lead to the bunkers. Merihaka’s bunkers can hold up to 6,600 people. There is a captive source of electricity that provides lighting, heating and ventilation, and there is water supply to meet the needs of those sheltered for weeks. In addition, if needed, supply trucks with additional provisions can access the shelter through the tunnels.

The Merihaka shelter is just a sample of the city’s entire network of shelters. There are 5,500 similar bunkers across Helsinki, creating a vast sprawl of underground facilities that can be used in times of need. These also include shelters that are mandatorily required to be built and maintained underground for all residential and commercial buildings that have an effective area of 1200 sq. m. (13,000 sq. ft.) or more.

Together, all of Helsinki’s underground bunkers can provide shelter to the entire population of the city (approx. 675,000 people). In addition, the metropolitan area’s 10 other municipalities also have their own shelter infrastructure.

In fact, such infrastructure extends across the country. In a recent inventory of all the bomb shelters in the country, the Finnish interior ministry, found 50,500 bomb shelters that can take care of 4.8 million people, or 87% of Finland’s population. According to the ministry, 91% of the shelters can sustain attacks with conventional weapons, while 83% are equipped to provide protection from gas emissions or nuclear emergencies.

Finland has built its network of bomb shelters over decades. It made emergency shelters mandatory under apartment blocks and office buildings as early as in the 1950s. The public shelters such as the one I visited in Hakaniemi were built in the 1980s and are regularly upgraded and maintained.

In peacetime, the shelters are leased out to facilities for sports and other leisure activities. In the Merihaka shelter there are courts for playing racquetball or futsal (indoor hardcourt football), a gym, a children’s recreational area, a cafe, and a huge underground parking area. Yet, if the need arises, in 72 hours the entire area can be turned into bunkers with assembled beds, toilets, sections divided by thick curtains and attended to by teams of volunteers who are regularly trained to assist in rescue, evacuation and sheltering services. In one of eastern Helsinki’s shelters there is even an Olympic sized swimming hall. Yet another has an ice-skating rink, and in Lapland, in the northernmost part of the country near the Arctic Circle, one shelter functions as a Santa Claus theme park.

Finland’s history with Russia is complicated and is marked by periods of conflict and cooperation. Finland was part of the Swedish Empire until 1809, when it was ceded to Russia after the Finnish War and became the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. Then, in 1917, amid the turmoil of the Russian revolution, Finland declared independence.

Since then Finland has fought several wars with the erstwhile Soviet Union, most notably the Winter War (1939–1940), which began with a Soviet invasion of Finland and ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty; and then the Continuation War (1941–1944), where Finland aligned with Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. Since then the two countries have coexisted with trade ties and cultural links.

Yet those past conflicts significantly shaped Finnish national identity and continued to influence Finland’s relationship with its eastern neighbor. For Finland that has meant being in a constant state of “preparedness”. Military training has been compulsory for young Finnish males since the early 1950s and from 1995, females are also permitted to volunteer. An estimated 80% of all Finnish males have undergone conscription training providing the Finnish defence forces, which have 280,000 active soldiers, with an additional reserve comprising 900,000 citizens, or around a third of the adult population.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Finland joining NATO, tension between the two countries has ratcheted up. Last year, Finland closed its border with Russia after a sudden increase in asylum seekers crossing over. Finland believes that Russia pushed in third-country asylum seekers as part of hybrid offensives against it. Other hybrid attacks that Finland suspects Russian to have backed include cyber attacks against Finnish companies and government agencies and gas pipeline disruptions. Recently Finnair stopped flights to Estonia after GPS signal interference prevented two planes from landing. Russia has been blamed for jamming GPS signals in the region. More recently, Russia’s defence ministry proposed to unilaterally change the country’s border in the Baltic Sea, which has riled Finland and other neighbours of Russia.

“Preparedness” for Finland, therefore, has also meant making other moves. With an increasingly aggressive Russia, it has begun storing military equipment outside its national borders in other Nordic countries, and has primed its defence industries for emergencies. It also has built stockpiles to meet six months’ needs of major fuels and foodgrains.

For the past seven successive years, Finland has been ranked as the world’s happiest country and many ascribe that to factors such as the abundance of nature, the efficiency of its social welfare system, and high quality of education. Yet, the threats that its belligerent neighbour poses loom large.

As I walk across Hakaniemi’s market square to catch a tram back home and Helsinki basks in springtime sunshine--a welcome relief from a winter that has been much too long and severe this year--the ominous darkness of such threats can seem ludicrous. But as Toni Viljanmaa, a senior journalist, remarks: “Spring is here; everyone’s happy and life seems normal for everybody. But deep down below, there certainly is concern about what could happen.” That is why, deep down below, the elaborate zigzagging tunnels and shelters are always ready to provide protection.