The underground spaces can be rented out. It's just pragmatic, if you've built something so expensive and have to maintain it, then it should be used for something. Helsinki is a small city, and real estate is in high demand. People don't mind having their practice underground if it means they can get there 30mins faster. If the spaces were just left to wait for a disaster, they could easily become neglected, and when needed, it would take a long time to actually get it usable. The spaces have been made ready and sports clubs can rent them out and that has brought sports stores. Some of the tunnels are used to avoid traffic above ground, it's just easier to move from building to building if you know the tunnels.
@@Timo8.2. The old global definition of a city meant that Helsinki wasn't one. The minimum population density was lowered to 1500/km^2 making Helsinki a city (it's around 3000/km^2). On a global scale Helsinki is a small city and some of it's boroughs are more densely populated than others.
@@Pro09videoThere's this fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsingin_tunneliverkosto article (in Finnish, so ill give you the gist and you can check an autotranslated version yourself). The most well known is of course the metro that runs from Matinkylä to Sörnäinen (it transitions into above ground tracks from there to Vuosaari/Mellunmäki), and there is a service tunnel from Kaivopuisto to Suomenlinna that doubles as an emergency evacuation route (sometimes used to transport patients from Suomenlinna). Then there's the station tunnel that was built to cross Mannerheimintie, but now has offshoots that directly connect to Kamppi, Forum, Lasipalatsi, Citycente, Sokos and a bunch of other buildings if you know which underground parking spaces to pass through. There's also the c. 2km Keskustan Huoltotunneli that starts in Kamppi (on the Ruoholahti side) and ends in Kaisaniemi, and connects Kamppi, Kluuvi and Stockmann parking garages, as well as a few other commercial parking spaces. It's treated as a standard street (motor vehicles only) and is designed for maintenance access, as well as to reduce traffic in the center aboveground. Plenty more tunnels on the way too.
Finland has shelters for 3,6 million people around the country, that can take 100 kilotonne (TNT) nuclear blast at ground zero. Most are below residential buildings in urban areas. By law builders are obligated to make a shelter in blocks measuring 3000 cubic meters (110 000 cu ft) or more. They are not normally even nearly this big though and are used as a warehouse space for the building.
100 kiltone really ain't much now, modern Nuclear weapons go way into the megatons in terms of explosive ordinance but atleast they actually have something I guess.
@@superbananas7792 I would guess it would be the low yield weapons that they want to prep for anyway. If a neighbouring power wanted to take over the area, obliterating the infrastructure would not serve any purpose toward their reasoning to try and take it over in the first place.
@@RoyRissanen Well occupying a country doesn't tend to be the objective of a Nuclear war anyway but instead completely obliterating your enemy faster then they can to you. There's a reason why its called MAD-Mutually Assured Destruction.
@@RoyRissanen True, though lower yield weapons are still typically much higher then 100 kilotons. I do also agree with you but I don't see much in the way occupations happen during and or after a Nuclear war as most militaries would be basically wiped out.
There are a lot of those tunnels under Helsinki. Some are in commersial use. Restaurants, sporting fields and stores etc. But there are also a lot of "hidden" emergensy tunnels down there that are not open to the public.
True. The most known and it's not a secret, is the tunnel for emergency vehicles and for maintenance from Kaivopuisto to Suomenlinna. That goes underground below sea for 1,3 kilometres. ruclips.net/video/xtDevBYNLU8/видео.html Here you can get an idea of what it looks under Helsinki. ruclips.net/video/FJMLFWoyEqE/видео.html The surface of Helsinki is excellent for underground building. Ever since 1960s Helsinki has built on purpose underground and now Helsinki has a major plan for underground building and maintenance (probably as the first city in the world).
The sporting fields are in everyday use. They are used mainly for floorball but also for futsal and handball. Floorball is their mainly use and I've played several times in that underground venue.
no one outside finland knows what the fuck is "futsal" try "football (soccer) - but dont bend over to the yankees that twisted the term. It is not "soccer" to us, so we dont use the term ;)
Finland is the only Nordic country, taking its defensive capability serious. The rest of us, not only can learn from Finland's lead, - we must learn! Respect and love from Denmark. A country with almost no will to fight.
About NATO: Officially Finland and Sweden are "NATO partners", the actual membership is kind of a taboo in both countries. Though it's said Finland and Sweden are more NATO-ready than some of the actual NATO members :)
more nato ready than america. the USA was the only country ever invoking artikel 4 - and the only country that ever profited by receiving direct military aid the USA is also the only country that calls the shots. The highest military position, is always a US general. The whole "we protect europe, so those nations should be grateful" sentiment is bullshit. The NATO protects U.S. interests. In case of the big war, europe will be burned, everybody - including current european nato members - know that. Imagine europe would be independent, perhaps even considering to partner up with another block. Oh, then the US would have reason for concern. So, lets keep it real. As long the superbullies in east and west cant put aside their stupid rivalry, we have to look out for ourselves here in europe. Protect our own interests.
Yeah, no joke. Finland is in so close relationship with NATO that if we were to become a member, all that would change would be the paperwork and wording in it + the signatures.
@@linda1lee2 I don´t think it´s a lack of will but economical realities and generally the people of Europe aren´t happy about spending ridiculous amounts of money on military. To add to that most European parties, regardless of country, doesn´t have a militaristic philosophy.
This is new to me too and totally kicks arse. What I have worked out is that the higher the taxes, the better the civil defence/schooling/healthcare/welfare/childcare/pensions = happiness. Apparently Finland is the happiest and most content country on this planet. With a long term government plan this switched on about the welfare of its people it's not hard to see why. As a gamer I'm also jealous of their superfast national fibre network, never a bad ping or getting kicked for latency, ever.
@@TheFuel89 People who are complaining about taxes because they are already getting used to "luxuries" given by gov. Some people are taking schools, libraries and other good quality public services self-evident and don't really see connection between taxes and public services. If we'd take those off and make people pay for them by themselves, most people could not afford them in a scale they are now and rest would complain how freaking expensive everything is. Someone could call this system "evil socialism" or "communism," but let them. I will happily still have it.
the reason why finland's tax payer money gets actually used properly is the quality of anti-corruption laws, I don't think the Finnish system would work in the US because of that for example.
@@Skibidinbdtjnde I really like our system here and would not change it to anything else, but we do have so called "good brother clubs" (a crude translation) and that basically means legal corruption. Im not saying its anything serious but a finnish comedic news show put it into words nicely: "The reason we are the least corrupt country on earth is not because we are so good, it is because everyone else is so shit"
Yeah, the internet here kicks ass. I live in a student apartment with the internet included in the price, I easily get around 20MB/s download speed and really good ping.
Finland is geographically located on top of some of the oldest bedrock in the world, which makes it extremely hard and durable. So building these big underground complexes is relatively easy since you don't have worry about structural integrity that much. Especially in Helsinki you're pretty much always walking on top of a civilian shelter, carpark or a server hall. Even my old school had underground tunnels connecting all the buildings and some facilities like our gym etc. And the special needs class room for some reason 😅 There are also many underground facilities all across Finland that were built during the cold war. They have food, medical supplies, arms and ammunition to carry on the fight in case of an occupation. The weapons there are pretty old I over heard my father's friend who was a major in fdf state there are 2 million chinese ak's there 😅.. Take that with a pinch of salt. But it doesn't have to be a war for these emergency supplies to be used now during covid a lot of those surplused medical supplies came in handy .
It is also relatively hard, because digging large caves into granite cannot be done with a teaspoon. And you might still have to deal with ground water. Helsinki is a harbour town.
While it's true that the bedrock we have left is the really hard stuff that doesn't erode easily, it still has all kinds of cracks and what have you - having been under the glaciation of the last Ice Age certainly doesn't help. IIRC the Helsinki subway line for example had to be routed around a local "bruise" in the bedrock at one part near the city center.
The main word here being "relatively". Compared to doing that in soft soil or less dense bedrock doing it in Finnish bedrock is RELATIVELY easy. It's not to say it's easy. It's just easier than it would be in a lot of other places
@@zoolkhan You can blast tunnels through sold rock, hence why you see the rough surfaces of the tunnel as it is the face of the rock after the surrounding rock was blast away and then the rockfaces are covered with shotcrete or something like it.
It's not just Helsinki, these kinda places are all around Finland. I live in a city with population of 50 000, and our swimming hall is inside a mountain... so during peace there is swimming pool, few saunas and a gym, but during war it's a shelter... and it can take a lot of bombs, since there is a literal mountain on top of the shelter :)
Helsinki is a bit different in way that there really is big underground network more than 200km long where is also electric, water, fiberoptic etc in tunnels that are big enough for car to drive. Where many other cities have separate bomb shelters or other facilities that aren't connected together.
@@rederos8079 Probably meant a hill. There are no proper mountains in Finland and even fells higher than 500m above sea level are only found in Lapland and they don't build cities on them.
@@Sibula a lot of these kind of cave shelters all around Finland are drilled into the bedrock so that may be what they're referring to. It's basically like having the safety of a mountain on top of you, right?
Those shelters are used as a sporting arenas during the noncrises times and they will be converted to a shelter during the crises. F.e. itäkeskus has a large swimming hall carved in to the bed rock which can be coverted to a huge shelter in a few days.
Mostly those underground areas are in somewhat limited civilian use, like sports fields that can be rented out - or gyms and stuff that require memberships etc. Basically, the businesses just have to acknowledge that if things suddenly go bad, they have less than 3 days to clear the space, so they can't really use them for storage for example. Actually quite a lot of shelters are in use for short term parking, practical use of the space, and easy to empty out. Some spaces are also public shopping areas or part of the metro system. Having them in regular use helps keep them clean and well maintained without having to pay full price for the upkeep of large, empty, cold spaces. Example, from the very heart of Helsinki ruclips.net/video/EcBR5dXexW0/видео.html The Kluuvi Parking Facility was originally designed to serve both purposes.
Yeah. To think that those spaces would be just on stand-by for decades and suddenly emergency situation arises... Nothing would work, probably. Or more likely whole tunnel system would not have been built. Now that they are more or less in everyday use air ventilation and such things have to be kept in working order and condition of tunnels in good shape. I'm sure that if some large scale disaster would strike there would not be beds or toilets enough, because those have to kept in reserves, which probably aren't there. But atleast the space is in working order. No two meters/yards of water covering the floors of tunnels, which i'm sure would happen if those spaces weren't into constant use during peace times.
Also, Finns have this mentality that if you keep places clean and quickly remove graffiti and other uninvited art, it discourages vandalism so the places also stay cleaner for longer and you have less to clean up on the long run.
They are used as sport venues, metro station and other business during normal times. Equipment is swapped to convert facilities to shelters if there is heightened risk. There is also data centers, water reservoirs, power generator and sewage treatment plant (a few examples of unclassified uses for underground constructions). We have relatively easy ground for construction with an old hard bedrock close to surface. If ground is less suitable for construction then costs would be much higher. Any body commenting from own experience knows only a fraction of facilities because there is so many of them.
Helsinki university has an underground particle accelerator in which' space could/would be turned into a shelter if needed. Just drive a bulldozer through the cave and all of the expensive equipment.
Those subway carts and train carts are taken out of service immediately if a graffity or large amount of dirt is noticed on the carts. Then they are cleaned and taken back to service. So that's why they are always so clean
The subway is relatively new but when I was there I found all of Helsinki to be a very clean city overall. Which is understandable after spending summers with my Grandmother, every weekend was like a whole spring cleaning of the house. It was my job to beat and shake out the mats I thought my arms would fall off
@@RoyRissanen Yeah washing mats is an old summer ritual, though I wouldn't do that in Helsinki sea waters. About the shelters: I just visited the light shelter in our apartment building, I have my own storage cubic there. Not a cozy place really, I only hope the Russians stay calm :P
There are almost 10 million cubic meters of underground facilities and tunnels in Helsinki. Just below the city center is also a 40-meter-deep artificial lake.
There are also pipes where there are ten billion liters of beer, as one comedian said, we can open borders when war breaks out, but be warned at the border that, these are drunk and they have guns!
@@tono6549 Well actually there exists a 600m long tunnel, 25 meters under the sea bottom Helsinki central area that was built to be used for transporting alcohol from Salmisaari to Ruoholahti underground storage facility. It was completely automated and also included public safety spaces.
Finland is based on granite rock. That makes it easy to construct underground premises. There are only a few places in the whole world, where there are that much granite as in Finland. This layer is deep enough. There is a over hundred kilometer long tunnel, which brings fresh water from the region of city of Lahti to Helsinki. I guess, rather, that Finland is that part who teaches NATO as regards underground construction. In western Africa a Finnish construction company made some underground shelters for U.S. Air Force.
I go to an Aikido training goup with my kid that uses a facility thats an underground shelter in Vantaa, Finland. The facility is rented out to all sorts of clubs for activities and what not. From archery to Floorball to Karate. As an electrician I was employed to do that extra grounding works in a work site. They converted a Metro service tunnel to be repurpoused as an emergency shelter. Not all shelters are the same but they all are sturdy and robust and a common sight in the basements of all Finnish appartment buildings. Keep up this nice channel and greeting from a finnish dad.
Most of the underground facilities that would be for shelters in Helsinki are normally for civilian use. However, there are lots of other underground facilities and passages that remain somewhat obscure or, basically secret to the general public. What's under Helsinki has been described like Swiss cheese, and most Finnish garrisons are like that as well.
I been told some of those tunnels are leading out and in of Helsinki, to evacuate civilians out and move military in. This is because they have calculated Helsinki can be taken, but they have also calculated that we can make holding it so costly that it's not worth it.
Nice video as usual, thanks! I wish there was a video about the Finnish long range recon patrols during WW2, those guys did some amazing stuff. One 4-man patrol stayed behind enemy lines for 56 days, during that time they marched some 300 miles evading soviet patrols, survived multiple engagements with the enemy and survived for 20 days without supplies, eating berries and mushrooms and a deer they managed to shoot. It's quite unbelieveable what a human being can do to survive.
Building (or , more likely, blasting) those tunnels and rooms underground may be easier in Finland than in most other countries. Finland has one of the oldest and most stable bedrocks, mainly of granite, and there is no significant seismic activity. So, underground spaces can be built safe. Even the world's first and only (so far) underground nuclear waste final storage tunnel system is located in Finland. It is planned to be safe at least for 100 000 years. A large part of the military material in Finland is stored in underground facilities, and military communications and operations centers are also underground. Civilian emergency response centers and their backup facilities are also located underground, so are the most important Air Traffic Control centers in Finland. Those public sports fields are mostly used by various sports clubs. Finnish schools do not have their own sports teams, but there are zillions of sports clubs even in small cities. All of them need some place and time for practice. About NATO and Finland: As a non-member, the article 5 does not apply to Finland, at least not officially. But everyone knows that Finland is protecting the Eastern border of Nato.
According to word of mouth Finland also has massive underground storage facilities for military equipment scattered all over. Obviously the location of these facilities is classified.
Some of those older facilities have been sold to public, so some of them are public knowledge. Anyway, it's common practice to militaries all over the globe.
I was working in a place where under the neighboring hill was a secret hospital. The service people visited there few times a week, during night. It is very close to Mellunkylä metro station. You can see the hill in google map.goo.gl/maps/aqeVPurdYc3M9ZZx8
The orange trains are the metro or "subways" in Helsinki and Espoo. Normal trains that go all over the country are usually above the ground and green-white in color. Edit: And yes, public transport in Finland is really clean 95% of the time.
Hey man. Hello, I'm a retired British man living in Lithuania,I really enjoy your videos very much. Such a n interesting insight and viewpoint. Keep em coming they're dope. Stay safe bro
Here in the UK we have Glen Douglas, massive array of tunnels and storage units built under a mountain, was set up as a NATO munitions storage area during Cold War to store up to 40000 tons of munitions for the UK, US and Netherlands
Nordic countries and Switzerland were pretty much only countries in the world that were prepared to protect their entire population during cold war if things got hot.
When visiting Helsinki last year we were quite surprised to find the car park to not just be deep under ground but also behind blast doors 😅 makes perfect sense though to help fund and keep maintainance high!
These are everywhere in Finland. Every single city has these underground facilities deep in the base rock. All apartment buildings must have an air raid shelter too and they are required to have a selection of tools, possibility to circulate fresh and filtered air, toilet facility etc. These public shelters are DEEP inside the granite bed rock.
i kind of doubt they are all up to date, in my apartment building we use those shelters as storage and there definitely are not toilets there for example...And i think i would know, since i was part of the "government" of the house.
@@formatique_arschloch i'm quite certain there aren't buckets with lids either. My point is that in private appartment buildings shelters were built, but they likely arent maintained properly.
@@SorbusAucubaria That would mean people are not doing their jobs. There should be someone from the building named as the person responsible for maintaining the readiness of the shelter.
I do archery and the two indoor shooting ranges I go to are both in these kinds of shelters. One is in a small section of a larger shelter rented by a club, the other is just a whole shelter used as a general sports center. They're really cool :D
I work on a public ferry in Finland and we have had the border guard, police and the fire department train on the ferry. It's nice to know that if help is needed, they know what they are doing.
Hauskaa tälleen ei-paikallisena aina vaan kävellä pitkin kauppakatuja Stadin alla ja nousta jostain kohtaa ylös ja kattoa että missäs sitä ollaankaan 😂
@@Stebetto3 Where did this come from? You are not alone, and have never have been. I gave Finland a blatant compliment. But in 1941 Finland allied itself with Nazi Germany, how could we help then?! Our allied forces were the USSR and US, your allied forces were Germany, Japan and Italy. Take a deep breath, chill the fuck out and realise the history of 80 years ago is fuck all to do with either of us. I think Finland rocks, and chose the enemy of its enemy, no blame.
@@lewilewis3944 We were never "allies" to Germany it was more co-operation. Yes this all happened long ago but still lesson is you can't trust others promices only your own ones. When guano hits the fan. Many will slip on promices
A few comments: 1) The thing talked about in the first video about business leaders being trained is a real and constant thing. Companies that function in fields that are considered strategically important have to have plans and procedures in place for crisis and their personnel regularly participate in training scenarios and such. There is an agency handling it. I have been in one such "what if" scenario training back in an old job. See: www.nesa.fi/ 2) The sporting fields and such are common businesses that you can visit. They are just turned quickly into shelters in a time of crisis. That is the three day thing they talked about. Within 72 hours of the order being given, the place will instead be shelter. But rather than have them be empty at normal times, they are instead used for useful things like sports.
The Finnish law has required large buildings (office buildings, apartment buildings and shops for example and excluding detached houses and rural buildings) to have an air raid shelter since 1955. The specifications are defined by the class of the shelter, which defines the necessary equipment, filters, door thickness and so on. The class essentially defines, what they must withstand. They were to be at least 2% of the area of the building with minimum area for the whole shelter and per person. There were also other strict requirements. These were somewhat relaxed in 2011 with a new law to the ones described in the first video, because building them is expensive. Of course, newer buildings will have air raid shelters too, if they have sufficient area. Older buildings still have their own air raid shelters, so together in an emergency the air raid shelters can house a huge portion of the population. Some of the air raid shelters are also built independently from any buildings into bedrock. At the moment there is no need for them and therefore they are used as recreational facilities, parking garages or something else, because there is a 72 hour period to prepare them.
20 years ago i was playing floorball under hq (tens of meters) of a big bank in helsinki and just looking of the doors you could see that it would be used as a shelter in time of emergency.
Helsinki actually might be the most dirty city in Finland! But it is still very clean 😊 And yes, these places are normal businesses there to visit. In my town we have one of these too, its a large sporting hall normally where people can train running, javelin, long jump, floorball, basketball and everything else. I think the cafeteria we saw there is just this sport hall cafeteria and maybe also where people can buy entrance ticket or have their card stamped.
Just to clarify; in Finland a real estate owner, such as a company that runs a housing building, is required by law to build and maintain an emergency shelter for 75% of the maximum capacity of that building. It will be a requirement in the building permit, and it will be checked regularly. Smaller buildings and buildings in areas where underground construction is especially difficult may get exceptions. The civil services also provide shelters for people not provided for by their landlords, as again, required by law. I would say, apart from Israel, Finland is the country most prepared for war, or a natural disaster.
Finland has tons of shelters with different ratings. Basicly all the apartment buildings have shelters underneath as carages or storage rooms. Then Finland also has huge caves just like in your video. These caves are usually rented out for commercial use for example sports facilities or carages. Huge cave shelters can take up to 6 bar blast.
In Britain we got garden sheds with tilly lamp candles bucket sleeping bags radio. Plus tools that can be utilised as weapons and white paint to cover shed to stop heat and radiation. Pocket multi knife battery torch tinned food milk sugar and tea.
Until very recently, Russia used to operate several old, RBMK-type nuclear reactors (the same type as in the Chernobyl accident) right on the southeast coast of Gulf of Finland, about 200 km from Helsinki. Knowing how dilligently (NOT!) Russians do the service and maintenance of their equipment, a nuclear accident has been the most likely serious scenario that would require people in Helsinki sheltering. In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been an increased amount of talk about resilience. Not just resilience in a military setting (being able to withstand losses), or resilience of the civil society, but also resilience of individual citizens and households. Everyone in Finland is recommended to keep emergency food, drink and other supplies for at least 72 hours (3 days). Something that does not need to be refrigerated, and to have some way to cook it. Like a camping cooker. Scientists say a society is constantly 72 hours from chaos and anarchy. Therefore having supplies for 72 hours will give time for the authorities to fix power grids, water supplies, grocery store cash registers, food supply logistic chains etc, without immediate need to start delivering emergency supplies to people or evacuating them to another region.
Many years ago I worked for a moving company, we had a gig to empty some gov offices. All the furniture were loaded into our trucks and we drove to these underground tunnels right in the Helsinki city center. Those tunnels were not open for public at all. They had 2 lanes to drive (or maybe just 1 but wider than normal traffic lane, cant remember) and they seemed to go on forever.. On these corridors there was just some pretty normal looking doors, one after another, leading who knows where. Then we stopped, opened one of those doors. There was a fairly large room behind it, packed with old office furniture.. We added to the heap. Total wtf moment. Quite surreal place. Who knows what is stored and forgotten there. Very cool.
This place is at normal times used as a common sportscenter and a playground for children. It just happends to be underground due to the lack of space in the downtown Helsinki.
Great video! Finns are used to the fact that in older apartment buildings, for example, everyone has bomb shelters in the basement. Or so-called civil shelters.
The space showcased here is actually commercially used as a gym/floorball stadium/indoor playground normally. It is under the deck of Hakaniemi market square and publicly accessible. There are secondary routes from the subway station and underground parking facilities of course :)
Hi man! Nice to see you focusing on my home country. These very precise measures and the mentality in general is due to our excellent school system and education. And that is the fundamental part of preparing us to the future threads. This with a reliable military defense is the way to go in this oh so uncertain world. Thanks again for your videos! Take care!
i don't know if you can tell about these places .. but in finland there are places underground .. hard rock .. etc ... same as in the movie .. Terminator 3
Finland also has underground weapons and supply depos, often build inside mountains, with almost ready entrances hidden so they can be blown open incase the enemy bombs/destroys the visible main entrance.
Oh and in Jyväskylä, where I live, we also have huge underground complex where we can play volleyball, floorball, futsal, do martial arts, badminton etc. and it is used as a sports center normally. And in case of a crisis people would find shelter there.
I live near a military area. They used to invite us to see what is in the tunnels under our houses. Tours stopped in 2014 when Crimea happened. Same time they started the urban war practices there. So, lots of RK 62 noises
To be totally honest the bunkers you see in thise videos are only the civil shelter bunkers and only shown on the parts they want you to see. There is a law in Finland that says that land owner only owns its land around 2 meters deep on area he/she owns the land rest of the land under 2m deep are owned by the covernment. There fore there is knowledg of how big the military tunel network actually is. I rember when i did my service back in 2000 there where navy pioners that come from leave on sunday and left somewhere on monday come back on friday covered by grey on dust went to shower chaingse there cloaths and went to leave to come back on next sunday. They never told where they go but they said they are doing the tunels and have not seen daylight for a week.
Fun fact about the Helsinki bombings. Since Soviets mainly bombed at night to avoid getting shot at, Soviets usually didn't know where they dropped their bombs. They just aimed for the lights they saw where city was supposed to be. So Finns built grids of light into islands outside Helsinki, set few garbage fires too, and forced mandatory blackouts to Helsinki at night. So lots of Soviet bombs were dropped into the sea and uninhabitated islands, and lives and buildings were saved. Soviets were sometimes bit confused that city was not where they expected, but never thought of it too much. At that time, visual flying was very common. When flying from Soviet Union for one hour or so, missing the city by one kilometer was just a thing.
These shelters are just the tip of the iceberg there are 100s of kilometers of tunnels and arteficial lakes for drinkingwater below the capital. These tunnel strecth from the city center to the suburbs and outskirts of the city. They are big enough to drive with cars and they are mainly used to distribute electricity and heating through out the city. This is for example why you dont see any electricity cables running from building to building in the city everything is underground.
I used to play many floorball games down at that shelter place! Floorball is the sport u play there (kinda like ice hockey but with shoes on and less equipment:D ) there is also a bowling alley and a small sports shop. All of these businesses operate during peace time. Oh and the ventilation is excellent!
I'm guessing the idea of having the spaces in use for public and for sports has much to do with heating! Heating up a big area like that encased in bedrock in reasonable time would be terribly costly, so instead the businesses keep them always heated to enable the 3-day preparedeness and get some of that cost covered by rentals. Finland, utilitarian as always 😉
Many Finns are forward thinking and ingenious. I’m proud of my former homeland. Those trains are called METRO, racing under and above ground, and are primarily pristine. After seeing these safe spaces created for Finns, I’m left wondering if American tax dollars have gone to build any protective places for us in case of emergencies?! Sadly, I think the answer is no. Thanks for making selfless videos.✌🏼
Those beds and portable toilets and all that is stored in one of those larger rooms and when they are taken out to fill other spaces those storage rooms will become more sleeping areas. So all that equipment is stored there underground also.
Hi. All the those hundreds different areas are connected and used daily for sport etc. That has cost billions to build so some use daily is must. They can converted to the main use in days if needed. Some areas have shopping centers etc. One is Olympic size swimming pool with Saunas and hot tubs. Think there is also hospital facilities when needed. So it can fully functional city under main city.
To quickly explain why there are a bunch of sporting areas, stores, playgrounds etc in the tunnels. This area under Helsinki is HUGE, and it doesn't make sense to maintain it for decades without it ever seeing any use whatsoever. So the area is designed to quickly and efficiently be turned into a bunker that can house a large amount of people for a definite time. BUT, until such a time arises, there is no sense in not USING the space. SO for the moment there are stores, playgrounds, sporting areas etc that are available to the public. This also helps offset the cost of maintaining the spaces. So yeah, you could go there and wander about whenever you feel like it right now, go have a coffee, go shopping for a bit or go do some sports. The dude you wondered about was probably coming to / leaving one of the gyms in the network. Just a dude and his workout.
The sporting fields are in use all the time, I’ve played indoor soccer there countless times and everytime i went there all the fields were in use for floorball or indoors soccer
One thing FDF is insanely good with is logistics. That includes plumbing and stuff. I can't exactly tell you about the early logistic forces because of heavy NDA but ti's that kind of stuff. We can get a crapload of soldiers and safe areas up in very short time
I read an article quite a few years ago now, where it said that Helsinki has over 300 kilometers worth of underground tunnels. I myself worked in one of the main department stores in downtown Helsinki for 8 years, and on the floor below ground where we had the storage space and changing rooms for the staff, there were several entrances to stairwells that led deep underground to blast doors, that would open up into massive tunnels, something like 10 meters wide an 8 meters tall. I did some, probably illegal, exploration with a flashlight a few times :D (those tunnels weren't lit) My explorations were limited by the length of my half hour break, so I didn't find anything too exciting, but at one point the tunnel branched out into three, one of which was angled slightly up and the other two slightly down, and I could see that they kept on going for quite a distance. The army also has a huge stockpile of weaponry and other military equipment around under Helsinki, and some of those tunnels from the store I worked at are supposed to link up with their underground training facilities, some of which are built like actual cities, for urban warfare training, with stuff that packs a harder punch than what they can use up on street level. I'm not entirely sure on the facts of the latter, as most of that I learned from a friend of my father, who is an electrician with some special security clearance, as he does contract work for the military, specifically underground.
You didn't do anything illegal, long as it is open you are free to go, there will be people telling you otherwise when you approach closed areas, figuring that you get past the locks and everything =) Weapon stashes are not only for military, there are major weapon stashes all around the Finland, the point is to arm civilians and remaining military personnel in case army should fall. Everyone knows where that stash is locally, it is just basic information.
I amazed by the lenghts of precautions countries like Finland and Switzerland go through to protect their population as well as their idea on miltary conscription, it makes so much sense and is a wonder why more countries including my own dont have a similar idea in place.
I guess for example here in Finland we have strong sense of unity as a nation and people inside the nation, we want to make sure our countrymen are safe no matter the cost.
There is alot of secret tunnels, I've also heard rumors that we have big tunnels where soldiers can move safely almost every incase of critical situation. Or alteast move trough the country underground
Actually the tunnels under Helsinki can take in all people currently living in Helsinki and thats about 631,000 people. And there is about 300 kilometres of tunnels.
In our department building, we got a bomb shelter. Every department building in Finland is at least one. It is used in peacetime as storage, but it is transformed as shelter when you need it. There are thick walls to protect against blasts. Airventalition system that can operate even whit out electricity. In Israel, there are in every house "Shelter rooms", that are for those rockets that they (Hamas) fire almost daily bases from the Gaza strip.
There's also a drivable maintenance tunnel that goes across the downtown area. It's connected to many parking caves and loading docks, but there have been plans to expand it to handle semitrailers as well; Being able to bypass the street grid and drive straight to freeways would allow ferries to unload much faster. Or move police/military units quickly and covertly. Swiss tunnels could be worth looking into.
The field seemed to be for floor hockey, a very popular sport in Finland and Scandinavia. Similarly, some of the space is used for underground parking.
One example I can think of as a Finn born in Helsinki was the gym I went to with my friends like six years ago. It was a gym run by the city and it was(and still is) in an underground shelter. It was like 30-50 meters underground and going to the gym you had to pass these huge blast doors. It is in the northern suburbs of Helsinki.
I live near the Russian border and there's an old bunker in my apartment building. It has been converted to storage units but could still be used in case of an emergency. I always struggle with the blast door 😂. The tunnels from shopping centers in Helsinki are quite nice in the winter as you can get to the train station while avoiding snow storms outside :p
So I Googled: the place introduced in both of the videos is called the Merihaka Joint Shelter, and it was built back in 2002 after the standard peace time use (i.e. sporting facilities)for it had been decided on. Nowadays it houses the Arena Center Hakaniemi and the kids' playground hub Leikkiluola, but behind the scenes it's still prepared to provide shelter for 6000 people. The ethos is that a contemporary shelter must serve a double function, because keeping them empty and unused is a massive waste of resources to both build and to maintain, which is why almost all shelters have a separate peace-time use as well (parking lots, sports facilities, metro stations, even swimming halls). I believe the Merihaka Joint Shelter is one of the showcase facilities that's often presented to the media, but I've spent my time looking for and learning about the tunnels and the connections that exist, and most of them are definitely closed from the general public and the media. One of the most interesting ones is one tunnel that I heard about that apparently connects the Kaarti Barracks (where Ministry of Defence is housed) to the Parliament House situated about a mile away. The Minister of Defence is able to go directly to the Parliament House by his car from the Barracks through the tunnel without having to enter any traffic above the ground. There's also one underground parking center that has two separate entrances more than half a mile apart; some guy figured he could abuse that fact to pass by some of the more congested streets in the down town on his daily commute...
Someone from Finland here! I've been to most of the tunnels. Been playing sports in the fields. Mainly floorball. My younger brother has played in the play areas. I've swam in the swimming pool. And yes there are other businesses. It's all very well thought out. You would never guess it's all meant for shielding people in case of a crisis. Only Helsinki has these massive tunnels, but there might be couple of smaller ones in other cities!
Every building in Finland over 1200m2 needs to have a shelter built. Usually on apartment buildings it's used primarily as storage/parking/whatever, but it needs to be converted to a shelter in 72 hours if needed.
13:00 Many shelters pull double duty as sporting fields, playgrounds ect. You don't always (hopefully never) need huge underground shelter, so using them for other activities when shelter is not needed makes sense. My university has sporting fields, band rooms, storage facilities, event space ect. in the basement "bomb shelter"
Finland has the bedrock very close to the ground, in many places even visible above the ground so it's a good place to have these kind of caves. Gives a sturdy protective dome above your head.
That was again a cool video. Here are my comments. I work in an underground facility here in Finland and the air quality is usually pretty good. The air is somewhat too dry and that causes problems for employees regularly. Also in the first video the firefighter talking about the subway rescues. He was in a leadership position. His title or rank in the US would be a Fire Captain I think.
The underground spaces can be rented out. It's just pragmatic, if you've built something so expensive and have to maintain it, then it should be used for something. Helsinki is a small city, and real estate is in high demand. People don't mind having their practice underground if it means they can get there 30mins faster. If the spaces were just left to wait for a disaster, they could easily become neglected, and when needed, it would take a long time to actually get it usable.
The spaces have been made ready and sports clubs can rent them out and that has brought sports stores. Some of the tunnels are used to avoid traffic above ground, it's just easier to move from building to building if you know the tunnels.
That makes sense. Solid points
Helsinki isn’t that small. Maybe you’re from the city center and think that’s Helsinki but there’s much more to Helsinki than downtown Helsinki
@@Timo8.2. The old global definition of a city meant that Helsinki wasn't one. The minimum population density was lowered to 1500/km^2 making Helsinki a city (it's around 3000/km^2).
On a global scale Helsinki is a small city and some of it's boroughs are more densely populated than others.
@@-Anjel Do you have any infromation or video on people moving from one building to an other using these tunnels?
@@Pro09videoThere's this fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsingin_tunneliverkosto article (in Finnish, so ill give you the gist and you can check an autotranslated version yourself). The most well known is of course the metro that runs from Matinkylä to Sörnäinen (it transitions into above ground tracks from there to Vuosaari/Mellunmäki), and there is a service tunnel from Kaivopuisto to Suomenlinna that doubles as an emergency evacuation route (sometimes used to transport patients from Suomenlinna). Then there's the station tunnel that was built to cross Mannerheimintie, but now has offshoots that directly connect to Kamppi, Forum, Lasipalatsi, Citycente, Sokos and a bunch of other buildings if you know which underground parking spaces to pass through.
There's also the c. 2km Keskustan Huoltotunneli that starts in Kamppi (on the Ruoholahti side) and ends in Kaisaniemi, and connects Kamppi, Kluuvi and Stockmann parking garages, as well as a few other commercial parking spaces. It's treated as a standard street (motor vehicles only) and is designed for maintenance access, as well as to reduce traffic in the center aboveground.
Plenty more tunnels on the way too.
Finland has shelters for 3,6 million people around the country, that can take 100 kilotonne (TNT) nuclear blast at ground zero. Most are below residential buildings in urban areas. By law builders are obligated to make a shelter in blocks measuring 3000 cubic meters (110 000 cu ft) or more. They are not normally even nearly this big though and are used as a warehouse space for the building.
100 kiltone really ain't much now, modern Nuclear weapons go way into the megatons in terms of explosive ordinance but atleast they actually have something I guess.
@@superbananas7792 I would guess it would be the low yield weapons that they want to prep for anyway. If a neighbouring power wanted to take over the area, obliterating the infrastructure would not serve any purpose toward their reasoning to try and take it over in the first place.
@@RoyRissanen Well occupying a country doesn't tend to be the objective of a Nuclear war anyway but instead completely obliterating your enemy faster then they can to you.
There's a reason why its called MAD-Mutually Assured Destruction.
@@superbananas7792 True but that would not be the case here being that Finland doesn't have a Nuclear arsenal to retaliate with.
@@RoyRissanen True, though lower yield weapons are still typically much higher then 100 kilotons.
I do also agree with you but I don't see much in the way occupations happen during and or after a Nuclear war as most militaries would be basically wiped out.
There are a lot of those tunnels under Helsinki. Some are in commersial use. Restaurants, sporting fields and stores etc.
But there are also a lot of "hidden" emergensy tunnels down there that are not open to the public.
True. The most known and it's not a secret, is the tunnel for emergency vehicles and for maintenance from Kaivopuisto to Suomenlinna. That goes underground below sea for 1,3 kilometres. ruclips.net/video/xtDevBYNLU8/видео.html Here you can get an idea of what it looks under Helsinki. ruclips.net/video/FJMLFWoyEqE/видео.html The surface of Helsinki is excellent for underground building. Ever since 1960s Helsinki has built on purpose underground and now Helsinki has a major plan for underground building and maintenance (probably as the first city in the world).
@@ttanot Yes. That is true. Driven that tunnel to Suomenlinna with a patrol car couple times.
I think Tromsø in Norway has an even larger tunnel network.
Montreal has the most underground area of real estate
200 plus km tunnels altogether under Helsinki to my knowledge.
Hey dude, Finland IS always clean, it is the behavior of the nation.
The sporting fields are in everyday use. They are used mainly for floorball but also for futsal and handball. Floorball is their mainly use and I've played several times in that underground venue.
nice
Yes. And badminton also :)
Those shelters can have all sorts of activities in them. I've visited one that had even an archery range in it.
no one outside finland knows what the fuck is "futsal" try "football (soccer) - but dont bend over to the yankees that twisted the term. It is not "soccer" to us, so we dont use the term ;)
@@zoolkhan Futsal is not the same as football/soccer, and futsal is well known globally. Way bigger sport outside Finland.
"we need a year-round ice for hockey players" hmmm, why not make it underground and bomb-proof. perkele
Finland is the only Nordic country, taking its defensive capability serious. The rest of us, not only can learn from Finland's lead, - we must learn! Respect and love from Denmark. A country with almost no will to fight.
About NATO: Officially Finland and Sweden are "NATO partners", the actual membership is kind of a taboo in both countries. Though it's said Finland and Sweden are more NATO-ready than some of the actual NATO members :)
EZ4ENCE
more nato ready than america.
the USA was the only country ever invoking artikel 4 - and the only country that ever profited by receiving direct military aid
the USA is also the only country that calls the shots. The highest military position, is always a US general.
The whole "we protect europe, so those nations should be grateful" sentiment is bullshit. The NATO protects U.S. interests.
In case of the big war, europe will be burned, everybody - including current european nato members - know that.
Imagine europe would be independent, perhaps even considering to partner up with another block.
Oh, then the US would have reason for concern. So, lets keep it real. As long the superbullies in east and west cant put aside their stupid rivalry, we have to look out for ourselves here
in europe. Protect our own interests.
Yeah, no joke. Finland is in so close relationship with NATO that if we were to become a member, all that would change would be the paperwork and wording in it + the signatures.
@@zoolkhan But few European nations meet their 2% military budget so apparently the don't want to protect their own interests.
@@linda1lee2 I don´t think it´s a lack of will but economical realities and generally the people of Europe aren´t happy about spending ridiculous amounts of money on military. To add to that most European parties, regardless of country, doesn´t have a militaristic philosophy.
This is new to me too and totally kicks arse. What I have worked out is that the higher the taxes, the better the civil defence/schooling/healthcare/welfare/childcare/pensions = happiness. Apparently Finland is the happiest and most content country on this planet. With a long term government plan this switched on about the welfare of its people it's not hard to see why.
As a gamer I'm also jealous of their superfast national fibre network, never a bad ping or getting kicked for latency, ever.
I don't think I've ever seen someone compliment Finland on its taxes lol. But yeah, you got that one right.
@@TheFuel89 People who are complaining about taxes because they are already getting used to "luxuries" given by gov. Some people are taking schools, libraries and other good quality public services self-evident and don't really see connection between taxes and public services. If we'd take those off and make people pay for them by themselves, most people could not afford them in a scale they are now and rest would complain how freaking expensive everything is. Someone could call this system "evil socialism" or "communism," but let them. I will happily still have it.
the reason why finland's tax payer money gets actually used properly is the quality of anti-corruption laws, I don't think the Finnish system would work in the US because of that for example.
@@Skibidinbdtjnde I really like our system here and would not change it to anything else, but we do have so called "good brother clubs" (a crude translation) and that basically means legal corruption. Im not saying its anything serious but a finnish comedic news show put it into words nicely: "The reason we are the least corrupt country on earth is not because we are so good, it is because everyone else is so shit"
Yeah, the internet here kicks ass. I live in a student apartment with the internet included in the price, I easily get around 20MB/s download speed and really good ping.
Finland is geographically located on top of some of the oldest bedrock in the world, which makes it extremely hard and durable. So building these big underground complexes is relatively easy since you don't have worry about structural integrity that much. Especially in Helsinki you're pretty much always walking on top of a civilian shelter, carpark or a server hall.
Even my old school had underground tunnels connecting all the buildings and some facilities like our gym etc. And the special needs class room for some reason 😅
There are also many underground facilities all across Finland that were built during the cold war. They have food, medical supplies, arms and ammunition to carry on the fight in case of an occupation. The weapons there are pretty old I over heard my father's friend who was a major in fdf state there are 2 million chinese ak's there 😅.. Take that with a pinch of salt.
But it doesn't have to be a war for these emergency supplies to be used now during covid a lot of those surplused medical supplies came in handy .
It is also relatively hard, because digging large caves into granite cannot be done with a teaspoon. And you might still have to deal with ground water. Helsinki is a harbour town.
While it's true that the bedrock we have left is the really hard stuff that doesn't erode easily, it still has all kinds of cracks and what have you - having been under the glaciation of the last Ice Age certainly doesn't help. IIRC the Helsinki subway line for example had to be routed around a local "bruise" in the bedrock at one part near the city center.
The main word here being "relatively". Compared to doing that in soft soil or less dense bedrock doing it in Finnish bedrock is RELATIVELY easy. It's not to say it's easy. It's just easier than it would be in a lot of other places
@@zoolkhan You can blast tunnels through sold rock, hence why you see the rough surfaces of the tunnel as it is the face of the rock after the surrounding rock was blast away and then the rockfaces are covered with shotcrete or something like it.
It's not just Helsinki, these kinda places are all around Finland. I live in a city with population of 50 000, and our swimming hall is inside a mountain... so during peace there is swimming pool, few saunas and a gym, but during war it's a shelter... and it can take a lot of bombs, since there is a literal mountain on top of the shelter :)
My small city shelter.. We use to had these "school discos" over there.. Great memory's 😁
Helsinki is a bit different in way that there really is big underground network more than 200km long where is also electric, water, fiberoptic etc in tunnels that are big enough for car to drive. Where many other cities have separate bomb shelters or other facilities that aren't connected together.
Where the heck did u find a mountain in finland? I would really love to hike there, let me know
@@rederos8079 Probably meant a hill. There are no proper mountains in Finland and even fells higher than 500m above sea level are only found in Lapland and they don't build cities on them.
@@Sibula a lot of these kind of cave shelters all around Finland are drilled into the bedrock so that may be what they're referring to. It's basically like having the safety of a mountain on top of you, right?
you can go shopping or play sports there at any time. hope this helps.
Shopping? You mean that small cafeteria any other sport facility also has?
Those shelters are used as a sporting arenas during the noncrises times and they will be converted to a shelter during the crises. F.e. itäkeskus has a large swimming hall carved in to the bed rock which can be coverted to a huge shelter in a few days.
I’ll make sure to pack my cricket bat for the apocalypse
I guess 'shopping' wouldn't be the right word but there definitely are cafeterias and sporting equipment stores down there for non-crisis times.
Mostly those underground areas are in somewhat limited civilian use, like sports fields that can be rented out - or gyms and stuff that require memberships etc. Basically, the businesses just have to acknowledge that if things suddenly go bad, they have less than 3 days to clear the space, so they can't really use them for storage for example. Actually quite a lot of shelters are in use for short term parking, practical use of the space, and easy to empty out. Some spaces are also public shopping areas or part of the metro system. Having them in regular use helps keep them clean and well maintained without having to pay full price for the upkeep of large, empty, cold spaces. Example, from the very heart of Helsinki ruclips.net/video/EcBR5dXexW0/видео.html The Kluuvi Parking Facility was originally designed to serve both purposes.
Mutta mä kuulin että se länsi metro muutuu vain kamalemaksi päivä päivältä.
Yeah. To think that those spaces would be just on stand-by for decades and suddenly emergency situation arises... Nothing would work, probably. Or more likely whole tunnel system would not have been built. Now that they are more or less in everyday use air ventilation and such things have to be kept in working order and condition of tunnels in good shape.
I'm sure that if some large scale disaster would strike there would not be beds or toilets enough, because those have to kept in reserves, which probably aren't there. But atleast the space is in working order. No two meters/yards of water covering the floors of tunnels, which i'm sure would happen if those spaces weren't into constant use during peace times.
As an ex Finland national we spend a lot on our infrastructure, hence the "clean" trains
that's awesome
Also, Finns have this mentality that if you keep places clean and quickly remove graffiti and other uninvited art, it discourages vandalism so the places also stay cleaner for longer and you have less to clean up on the long run.
PEPPER'S PIZZA MAKES ME DRIBBLE.
They are used as sport venues, metro station and other business during normal times. Equipment is swapped to convert facilities to shelters if there is heightened risk.
There is also data centers, water reservoirs, power generator and sewage treatment plant (a few examples of unclassified uses for underground constructions).
We have relatively easy ground for construction with an old hard bedrock close to surface. If ground is less suitable for construction then costs would be much higher.
Any body commenting from own experience knows only a fraction of facilities because there is so many of them.
Helsinki university has an underground particle accelerator in which' space could/would be turned into a shelter if needed. Just drive a bulldozer through the cave and all of the expensive equipment.
Those subway carts and train carts are taken out of service immediately if a graffity or large amount of dirt is noticed on the carts. Then they are cleaned and taken back to service. So that's why they are always so clean
Also the Helsinki subway "network" (the only subway in Finland) is just one line with two tails.
The subway is relatively new but when I was there I found all of Helsinki to be a very clean city overall. Which is understandable after spending summers with my Grandmother, every weekend was like a whole spring cleaning of the house. It was my job to beat and shake out the mats I thought my arms would fall off
Yeah all that mat beating & shaking, also mat washing in a lake very summer. Luckily all that's out of fashion these days :)
@@mikrokupu I was interested to see the mat washing stations along the waterfront in Helsinki when I was there last fall.
@@RoyRissanen Yeah washing mats is an old summer ritual, though I wouldn't do that in Helsinki sea waters. About the shelters: I just visited the light shelter in our apartment building, I have my own storage cubic there. Not a cozy place really, I only hope the Russians stay calm :P
hahaha
There are almost 10 million cubic meters of underground facilities and tunnels in Helsinki. Just below the city center is also a 40-meter-deep artificial lake.
There are also pipes where there are ten billion liters of beer, as one comedian said, we can open borders when war breaks out, but be warned at the border that, these are drunk and they have guns!
@@tono6549 And also we planning to dig a tunnel to Estonia, it acts like a huge straw and we can drink all their booze..
@@OriginalThisAndThat Then when the estonia is sucked dry, everyone has the curtains closed and no one answers the phone for two weeks!
@@tono6549 Well actually there exists a 600m long tunnel, 25 meters under the sea bottom Helsinki central area that was built to be used for transporting alcohol from Salmisaari to Ruoholahti underground storage facility. It was completely automated and also included public safety spaces.
Ah! So this is why Helsinki is the first sign of life after the asteroid strike in the movie Greenland ;)
Lol, as a citizen of Helsinki, I reakted on that too when I saw that movie😂👍
Finland is based on granite rock. That makes it easy to construct underground premises. There are only a few places in the whole world, where there are that much granite as in Finland. This layer is deep enough. There is a over hundred kilometer long tunnel, which brings fresh water from the region of city of Lahti to Helsinki. I guess, rather, that Finland is that part who teaches NATO as regards underground construction. In western Africa a Finnish construction company made some underground shelters for U.S. Air Force.
I go to an Aikido training goup with my kid that uses a facility thats an underground shelter in Vantaa, Finland. The facility is rented out to all sorts of clubs for activities and what not. From archery to Floorball to Karate.
As an electrician I was employed to do that extra grounding works in a work site. They converted a Metro service tunnel to be repurpoused as an emergency shelter.
Not all shelters are the same but they all are sturdy and robust and a common sight in the basements of all Finnish appartment buildings.
Keep up this nice channel and greeting from a finnish dad.
Even the city of Jyväskylä (with a population of only 138k) has this underground sports arena / shelter of 8,500 square meters.
@Make M.45 True. But the fact still remains that Graniitti was there even before it reached 100k. ;)
Most of the underground facilities that would be for shelters in Helsinki are normally for civilian use. However, there are lots of other underground facilities and passages that remain somewhat obscure or, basically secret to the general public. What's under Helsinki has been described like Swiss cheese, and most Finnish garrisons are like that as well.
I been told some of those tunnels are leading out and in of Helsinki, to evacuate civilians out and move military in. This is because they have calculated Helsinki can be taken, but they have also calculated that we can make holding it so costly that it's not worth it.
Nice video as usual, thanks! I wish there was a video about the Finnish long range recon patrols during WW2, those guys did some amazing stuff. One 4-man patrol stayed behind enemy lines for 56 days, during that time they marched some 300 miles evading soviet patrols, survived multiple engagements with the enemy and survived for 20 days without supplies, eating berries and mushrooms and a deer they managed to shoot. It's quite unbelieveable what a human being can do to survive.
Building (or , more likely, blasting) those tunnels and rooms underground may be easier in Finland than in most other countries. Finland has one of the oldest and most stable bedrocks, mainly of granite, and there is no significant seismic activity. So, underground spaces can be built safe. Even the world's first and only (so far) underground nuclear waste final storage tunnel system is located in Finland. It is planned to be safe at least for 100 000 years.
A large part of the military material in Finland is stored in underground facilities, and military communications and operations centers are also underground. Civilian emergency response centers and their backup facilities are also located underground, so are the most important Air Traffic Control centers in Finland.
Those public sports fields are mostly used by various sports clubs. Finnish schools do not have their own sports teams, but there are zillions of sports clubs even in small cities. All of them need some place and time for practice.
About NATO and Finland: As a non-member, the article 5 does not apply to Finland, at least not officially. But everyone knows that Finland is protecting the Eastern border of Nato.
According to word of mouth Finland also has massive underground storage facilities for military equipment scattered all over. Obviously the location of these facilities is classified.
Not just military equipment but medical and emergency equipment. Corona situation made Finland first time use those reserves.
Every country with decent defence forces and plans for a total war would have such military storage facilities.
Some of those older facilities have been sold to public, so some of them are public knowledge. Anyway, it's common practice to militaries all over the globe.
I was working in a place where under the neighboring hill was a secret hospital. The service people visited there few times a week, during night. It is very close to Mellunkylä metro station. You can see the hill in google map.goo.gl/maps/aqeVPurdYc3M9ZZx8
@@kansaIainen damn that's cool
Welcome to your new home underground, and thank you for choosing Vault-tech.
The orange trains are the metro or "subways" in Helsinki and Espoo. Normal trains that go all over the country are usually above the ground and green-white in color.
Edit: And yes, public transport in Finland is really clean 95% of the time.
Metro on se koko järjestelmä eikä juna
Hey man.
Hello, I'm a retired British man living in Lithuania,I really enjoy your videos very much. Such a n interesting insight and viewpoint. Keep em coming they're dope. Stay safe bro
The entire Helsinki from ground down is swiss cheese. Tunnels everywhere. Some are used commercially and some are more support and storage.
Yeap.
I have played countless of times when I was younger in those underground floorball places.
They are actually kind of comfy :3
Here in the UK we have Glen Douglas, massive array of tunnels and storage units built under a mountain, was set up as a NATO munitions storage area during Cold War to store up to 40000 tons of munitions for the UK, US and Netherlands
The shelters are rented out for different businesses like gyms, sports centres and such. In time of crisis they are of course utilized as bunkers.
You should look at Switzerlands preparedness for invasion
Boom
Blow up all the bridges, block the mountain passes and hope no one sees you? *I joke of course
Yeah the Swiss would be an absolute nightmare to invade.
Nordic countries and Switzerland were pretty much only countries in the world that were prepared to protect their entire population during cold war if things got hot.
When visiting Helsinki last year we were quite surprised to find the car park to not just be deep under ground but also behind blast doors 😅 makes perfect sense though to help fund and keep maintainance high!
Greetings from Finland🇫🇮
These are everywhere in Finland. Every single city has these underground facilities deep in the base rock. All apartment buildings must have an air raid shelter too and they are required to have a selection of tools, possibility to circulate fresh and filtered air, toilet facility etc.
These public shelters are DEEP inside the granite bed rock.
i kind of doubt they are all up to date, in my apartment building we use those shelters as storage and there definitely are not toilets there for example...And i think i would know, since i was part of the "government" of the house.
@@SorbusAucubaria Usually they are storage spaces/basements, that's normal. In normal apartment building the toilets are just buckets with lids.
@@formatique_arschloch i'm quite certain there aren't buckets with lids either. My point is that in private appartment buildings shelters were built, but they likely arent maintained properly.
@@SorbusAucubaria Sad to hear that. My experience is different.
@@SorbusAucubaria That would mean people are not doing their jobs. There should be someone from the building named as the person responsible for maintaining the readiness of the shelter.
I hope, that after covid-19 Finnish Goverment, Military or some instances will give you invitation (fly tickets) to visit here in Finland.. 👍
Definitely a warm welcome to Finland. The Finnish Defense Forces are also a fan of our friend.
I do archery and the two indoor shooting ranges I go to are both in these kinds of shelters. One is in a small section of a larger shelter rented by a club, the other is just a whole shelter used as a general sports center. They're really cool :D
I work on a public ferry in Finland and we have had the border guard, police and the fire department train on the ferry. It's nice to know that if help is needed, they know what they are doing.
They have whole shopping centres and parking areas underground , they're very popular during the Finnish winter.
I've parked under Helsinki when I worked in Finland one year, it was amazing how large that area was.
Hauskaa tälleen ei-paikallisena aina vaan kävellä pitkin kauppakatuja Stadin alla ja nousta jostain kohtaa ylös ja kattoa että missäs sitä ollaankaan 😂
We Finns aren't gonna run into Sweden if crisis hits and we need to go in shelter
I think Sweden will be coming to you, your country smashes it!
@@lewilewis3944 in WW2 France and Brits said they help. They did not. do anything. Neither did Sweden. If war comes we are alone again..
@@Stebetto3 Where did this come from? You are not alone, and have never have been. I gave Finland a blatant compliment. But in 1941 Finland allied itself with Nazi Germany, how could we help then?! Our allied forces were the USSR and US, your allied forces were Germany, Japan and Italy. Take a deep breath, chill the fuck out and realise the history of 80 years ago is fuck all to do with either of us. I think Finland rocks, and chose the enemy of its enemy, no blame.
@@lewilewis3944 We were never "allies" to Germany it was more co-operation. Yes this all happened long ago but still lesson is you can't trust others promices only your own ones. When guano hits the fan. Many will slip on promices
@@lewilewis3944 Also I did not intent this as offence. More like just a comment :)
I hope that US military sees your value as emissary/ambassador for whole world and give you a huge raise :)
A few comments:
1) The thing talked about in the first video about business leaders being trained is a real and constant thing. Companies that function in fields that are considered strategically important have to have plans and procedures in place for crisis and their personnel regularly participate in training scenarios and such. There is an agency handling it. I have been in one such "what if" scenario training back in an old job. See: www.nesa.fi/
2) The sporting fields and such are common businesses that you can visit. They are just turned quickly into shelters in a time of crisis. That is the three day thing they talked about. Within 72 hours of the order being given, the place will instead be shelter. But rather than have them be empty at normal times, they are instead used for useful things like sports.
The Finnish law has required large buildings (office buildings, apartment buildings and shops for example and excluding detached houses and rural buildings) to have an air raid shelter since 1955. The specifications are defined by the class of the shelter, which defines the necessary equipment, filters, door thickness and so on. The class essentially defines, what they must withstand. They were to be at least 2% of the area of the building with minimum area for the whole shelter and per person. There were also other strict requirements. These were somewhat relaxed in 2011 with a new law to the ones described in the first video, because building them is expensive. Of course, newer buildings will have air raid shelters too, if they have sufficient area. Older buildings still have their own air raid shelters, so together in an emergency the air raid shelters can house a huge portion of the population. Some of the air raid shelters are also built independently from any buildings into bedrock.
At the moment there is no need for them and therefore they are used as recreational facilities, parking garages or something else, because there is a 72 hour period to prepare them.
20 years ago i was playing floorball under hq (tens of meters) of a big bank in helsinki and just looking of the doors you could see that it would be used as a shelter in time of emergency.
Helsinki actually might be the most dirty city in Finland! But it is still very clean 😊
And yes, these places are normal businesses there to visit. In my town we have one of these too, its a large sporting hall normally where people can train running, javelin, long jump, floorball, basketball and everything else. I think the cafeteria we saw there is just this sport hall cafeteria and maybe also where people can buy entrance ticket or have their card stamped.
Switzerland has a pretty good network of underground bunkers etc.
Just to clarify; in Finland a real estate owner, such as a company that runs a housing building, is required by law to build and maintain an emergency shelter for 75% of the maximum capacity of that building. It will be a requirement in the building permit, and it will be checked regularly. Smaller buildings and buildings in areas where underground construction is especially difficult may get exceptions. The civil services also provide shelters for people not provided for by their landlords, as again, required by law. I would say, apart from Israel, Finland is the country most prepared for war, or a natural disaster.
Finland has tons of shelters with different ratings. Basicly all the apartment buildings have shelters underneath as carages or storage rooms. Then Finland also has huge caves just like in your video. These caves are usually rented out for commercial use for example sports facilities or carages. Huge cave shelters can take up to 6 bar blast.
In Britain we got garden sheds with tilly lamp candles bucket sleeping bags radio. Plus tools that can be utilised as weapons and white paint to cover shed to stop heat and radiation. Pocket multi knife battery torch tinned food milk sugar and tea.
Until very recently, Russia used to operate several old, RBMK-type nuclear reactors (the same type as in the Chernobyl accident) right on the southeast coast of Gulf of Finland, about 200 km from Helsinki. Knowing how dilligently (NOT!) Russians do the service and maintenance of their equipment, a nuclear accident has been the most likely serious scenario that would require people in Helsinki sheltering.
In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been an increased amount of talk about resilience. Not just resilience in a military setting (being able to withstand losses), or resilience of the civil society, but also resilience of individual citizens and households.
Everyone in Finland is recommended to keep emergency food, drink and other supplies for at least 72 hours (3 days). Something that does not need to be refrigerated, and to have some way to cook it. Like a camping cooker. Scientists say a society is constantly 72 hours from chaos and anarchy. Therefore having supplies for 72 hours will give time for the authorities to fix power grids, water supplies, grocery store cash registers, food supply logistic chains etc, without immediate need to start delivering emergency supplies to people or evacuating them to another region.
Many years ago I worked for a moving company, we had a gig to empty some gov offices. All the furniture were loaded into our trucks and we drove to these underground tunnels right in the Helsinki city center. Those tunnels were not open for public at all. They had 2 lanes to drive (or maybe just 1 but wider than normal traffic lane, cant remember) and they seemed to go on forever.. On these corridors there was just some pretty normal looking doors, one after another, leading who knows where. Then we stopped, opened one of those doors. There was a fairly large room behind it, packed with old office furniture.. We added to the heap. Total wtf moment. Quite surreal place. Who knows what is stored and forgotten there. Very cool.
This place is at normal times used as a common sportscenter and a playground for children. It just happends to be underground due to the lack of space in the downtown Helsinki.
Great video! Finns are used to the fact that in older apartment buildings, for example, everyone has bomb shelters in the basement. Or so-called civil shelters.
More Helsinki underground tunnels. Check out a RUclips video called: "【4K】Helsinki Service Tunnel Drive" 🧐
Finland’s version of metro 2033 looks too easy
You have no idea how expensive our version was :D
You can at the very least expect to not have a underground war between nazis and communists, divided by capitalists in our tunnels.
The space showcased here is actually commercially used as a gym/floorball stadium/indoor playground normally. It is under the deck of Hakaniemi market square and publicly accessible. There are secondary routes from the subway station and underground parking facilities of course :)
Hi man! Nice to see you focusing on my home country. These very precise measures and the mentality in general is due to our excellent school system and education. And that is the fundamental part of preparing us to the future threads. This with a reliable military defense is the way to go in this oh so uncertain world. Thanks again for your videos! Take care!
we have skateboard center´s as well in there.
i don't know if you can tell about these places .. but in finland there are places underground .. hard rock .. etc ... same as in the movie .. Terminator 3
Finland also has underground weapons and supply depos, often build inside mountains, with almost ready entrances hidden so they can be blown open incase the enemy bombs/destroys the visible main entrance.
Oh and in Jyväskylä, where I live, we also have huge underground complex where we can play volleyball, floorball, futsal, do martial arts, badminton etc. and it is used as a sports center normally. And in case of a crisis people would find shelter there.
I live near a military area. They used to invite us to see what is in the tunnels under our houses. Tours stopped in 2014 when Crimea happened. Same time they started the urban war practices there. So, lots of RK 62 noises
Mountains? I'm still looking for one. Even Puijo is only a hill.....
To be totally honest the bunkers you see in thise videos are only the civil shelter bunkers and only shown on the parts they want you to see. There is a law in Finland that says that land owner only owns its land around 2 meters deep on area he/she owns the land rest of the land under 2m deep are owned by the covernment. There fore there is knowledg of how big the military tunel network actually is. I rember when i did my service back in 2000 there where navy pioners that come from leave on sunday and left somewhere on monday come back on friday covered by grey on dust went to shower chaingse there cloaths and went to leave to come back on next sunday. They never told where they go but they said they are doing the tunels and have not seen daylight for a week.
There has to be a record for the deepest/most underground sauna!?
1410 m deep is the deepest underground sauna.
Pyhäsalmi zinc and copper mine. Finland.
@@freezedeve3119 Why I'm not surprised :D
Fun fact about the Helsinki bombings. Since Soviets mainly bombed at night to avoid getting shot at, Soviets usually didn't know where they dropped their bombs. They just aimed for the lights they saw where city was supposed to be.
So Finns built grids of light into islands outside Helsinki, set few garbage fires too, and forced mandatory blackouts to Helsinki at night. So lots of Soviet bombs were dropped into the sea and uninhabitated islands, and lives and buildings were saved. Soviets were sometimes bit confused that city was not where they expected, but never thought of it too much. At that time, visual flying was very common. When flying from Soviet Union for one hour or so, missing the city by one kilometer was just a thing.
These shelters are just the tip of the iceberg there are 100s of kilometers of tunnels and arteficial lakes for drinkingwater below the capital. These tunnel strecth from the city center to the suburbs and outskirts of the city. They are big enough to drive with cars and they are mainly used to distribute electricity and heating through out the city. This is for example why you dont see any electricity cables running from building to building in the city everything is underground.
I used to play many floorball games down at that shelter place! Floorball is the sport u play there (kinda like ice hockey but with shoes on and less equipment:D ) there is also a bowling alley and a small sports shop. All of these businesses operate during peace time. Oh and the ventilation is excellent!
Im from finland i didnt even knew this.
A floorball game in Finland will not be interrupted by a pesky nuclear annihilation.
I'm guessing the idea of having the spaces in use for public and for sports has much to do with heating! Heating up a big area like that encased in bedrock in reasonable time would be terribly costly, so instead the businesses keep them always heated to enable the 3-day preparedeness and get some of that cost covered by rentals. Finland, utilitarian as always 😉
Weirdo
Switzerlan, you have make a couple of stories: Swiss guys keep there assault rifles, with 3 day ammo. You never heard A Swiss gunning his school....
Many Finns are forward thinking and ingenious.
I’m proud of my former homeland.
Those trains are called METRO, racing under and above ground, and are primarily pristine.
After seeing these safe spaces created for Finns, I’m left wondering if American tax dollars
have gone to build any protective places for us in case of emergencies?!
Sadly, I think the answer is no.
Thanks for making selfless videos.✌🏼
Those beds and portable toilets and all that is stored in one of those larger rooms and when they are taken out to fill other spaces those storage rooms will become more sleeping areas. So all that equipment is stored there underground also.
Hi. All the those hundreds different areas are connected and used daily for sport etc. That has cost billions to build so some use daily is must. They can converted to the main use in days if needed. Some areas have shopping centers etc. One is Olympic size swimming pool with Saunas and hot tubs. Think there is also hospital facilities when needed. So it can fully functional city under main city.
To quickly explain why there are a bunch of sporting areas, stores, playgrounds etc in the tunnels.
This area under Helsinki is HUGE, and it doesn't make sense to maintain it for decades without it ever seeing any use whatsoever. So the area is designed to quickly and efficiently be turned into a bunker that can house a large amount of people for a definite time.
BUT, until such a time arises, there is no sense in not USING the space. SO for the moment there are stores, playgrounds, sporting areas etc that are available to the public. This also helps offset the cost of maintaining the spaces.
So yeah, you could go there and wander about whenever you feel like it right now, go have a coffee, go shopping for a bit or go do some sports.
The dude you wondered about was probably coming to / leaving one of the gyms in the network. Just a dude and his workout.
The sporting fields are in use all the time, I’ve played indoor soccer there countless times and everytime i went there all the fields were in use for floorball or indoors soccer
One thing FDF is insanely good with is logistics. That includes plumbing and stuff. I can't exactly tell you about the early logistic forces because of heavy NDA but ti's that kind of stuff. We can get a crapload of soldiers and safe areas up in very short time
I read an article quite a few years ago now, where it said that Helsinki has over 300 kilometers worth of underground tunnels.
I myself worked in one of the main department stores in downtown Helsinki for 8 years, and on the floor below ground where we had the storage space and changing rooms for the staff, there were several entrances to stairwells that led deep underground to blast doors, that would open up into massive tunnels, something like 10 meters wide an 8 meters tall. I did some, probably illegal, exploration with a flashlight a few times :D (those tunnels weren't lit) My explorations were limited by the length of my half hour break, so I didn't find anything too exciting, but at one point the tunnel branched out into three, one of which was angled slightly up and the other two slightly down, and I could see that they kept on going for quite a distance.
The army also has a huge stockpile of weaponry and other military equipment around under Helsinki, and some of those tunnels from the store I worked at are supposed to link up with their underground training facilities, some of which are built like actual cities, for urban warfare training, with stuff that packs a harder punch than what they can use up on street level.
I'm not entirely sure on the facts of the latter, as most of that I learned from a friend of my father, who is an electrician with some special security clearance, as he does contract work for the military, specifically underground.
You didn't do anything illegal, long as it is open you are free to go, there will be people telling you otherwise when you approach closed areas, figuring that you get past the locks and everything =)
Weapon stashes are not only for military, there are major weapon stashes all around the Finland, the point is to arm civilians and remaining military personnel in case army should fall. Everyone knows where that stash is locally, it is just basic information.
those orange r metro train finnish metro line is just east and west line
I amazed by the lenghts of precautions countries like Finland and Switzerland go through to protect their population as well as their idea on miltary conscription, it makes so much sense and is a wonder why more countries including my own dont have a similar idea in place.
I guess for example here in Finland we have strong sense of unity as a nation and people inside the nation, we want to make sure our countrymen are safe no matter the cost.
2:56 firefighter looked like Miska Haakana
There is alot of secret tunnels, I've also heard rumors that we have big tunnels where soldiers can move safely almost every incase of critical situation. Or alteast move trough the country underground
Actually the tunnels under Helsinki can take in all people currently living in Helsinki and thats about 631,000 people. And there is about 300 kilometres of tunnels.
In our department building, we got a bomb shelter. Every department building in Finland is at least one. It is used in peacetime as storage, but it is transformed as shelter when you need it. There are thick walls to protect against blasts. Airventalition system that can operate even whit out electricity. In Israel, there are in every house "Shelter rooms", that are for those rockets that they (Hamas) fire almost daily bases from the Gaza strip.
There's also a drivable maintenance tunnel that goes across the downtown area. It's connected to many parking caves and loading docks, but there have been plans to expand it to handle semitrailers as well; Being able to bypass the street grid and drive straight to freeways would allow ferries to unload much faster. Or move police/military units quickly and covertly.
Swiss tunnels could be worth looking into.
The field seemed to be for floor hockey, a very popular sport in Finland and Scandinavia. Similarly, some of the space is used for underground parking.
One example I can think of as a Finn born in Helsinki was the gym I went to with my friends like six years ago. It was a gym run by the city and it was(and still is) in an underground shelter. It was like 30-50 meters underground and going to the gym you had to pass these huge blast doors. It is in the northern suburbs of Helsinki.
I live near the Russian border and there's an old bunker in my apartment building. It has been converted to storage units but could still be used in case of an emergency. I always struggle with the blast door 😂. The tunnels from shopping centers in Helsinki are quite nice in the winter as you can get to the train station while avoiding snow storms outside :p
So I Googled: the place introduced in both of the videos is called the Merihaka Joint Shelter, and it was built back in 2002 after the standard peace time use (i.e. sporting facilities)for it had been decided on. Nowadays it houses the Arena Center Hakaniemi and the kids' playground hub Leikkiluola, but behind the scenes it's still prepared to provide shelter for 6000 people. The ethos is that a contemporary shelter must serve a double function, because keeping them empty and unused is a massive waste of resources to both build and to maintain, which is why almost all shelters have a separate peace-time use as well (parking lots, sports facilities, metro stations, even swimming halls).
I believe the Merihaka Joint Shelter is one of the showcase facilities that's often presented to the media, but I've spent my time looking for and learning about the tunnels and the connections that exist, and most of them are definitely closed from the general public and the media. One of the most interesting ones is one tunnel that I heard about that apparently connects the Kaarti Barracks (where Ministry of Defence is housed) to the Parliament House situated about a mile away. The Minister of Defence is able to go directly to the Parliament House by his car from the Barracks through the tunnel without having to enter any traffic above the ground. There's also one underground parking center that has two separate entrances more than half a mile apart; some guy figured he could abuse that fact to pass by some of the more congested streets in the down town on his daily commute...
Someone from Finland here! I've been to most of the tunnels. Been playing sports in the fields. Mainly floorball. My younger brother has played in the play areas. I've swam in the swimming pool. And yes there are other businesses. It's all very well thought out. You would never guess it's all meant for shielding people in case of a crisis. Only Helsinki has these massive tunnels, but there might be couple of smaller ones in other cities!
Been in those areas couple of times. There is those sports areas, cafeteria, kids playgrounds and much more.. About 5 floors down underground.
Every building in Finland over 1200m2 needs to have a shelter built. Usually on apartment buildings it's used primarily as storage/parking/whatever, but it needs to be converted to a shelter in 72 hours if needed.
13:00 Many shelters pull double duty as sporting fields, playgrounds ect. You don't always (hopefully never) need huge underground shelter, so using them for other activities when shelter is not needed makes sense. My university has sporting fields, band rooms, storage facilities, event space ect. in the basement "bomb shelter"
on 70 we had mandatory had bombsheterl in every bulding more than 3 floors
Finland has the bedrock very close to the ground, in many places even visible above the ground so it's a good place to have these kind of caves. Gives a sturdy protective dome above your head.
i love the British tea in the background, Yorkshire boy myself so thats my tea choice bro , pg tips is a good alternative
Nice video!
Swedish Navy has Muskö navy base which has tunnels where they can berth their subs, frigates and corvettes.
That was again a cool video. Here are my comments. I work in an underground facility here in Finland and the air quality is usually pretty good. The air is somewhat too dry and that causes problems for employees regularly.
Also in the first video the firefighter talking about the subway rescues. He was in a leadership position. His title or rank in the US would be a Fire Captain I think.
There's actually a similar shelter used for sports in Tampere as well.