Marine reacts to Finland's Underground City
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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.
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. ua-cam.com/video/xtDevBYNLU8/v-deo.html Here you can get an idea of what it looks under Helsinki. ua-cam.com/video/FJMLFWoyEqE/v-deo.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.
"we need a year-round ice for hockey players" hmmm, why not make it underground and bomb-proof. perkele
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.
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.
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.
@@faetf2644 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.
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.
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.
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 ua-cam.com/video/EcBR5dXexW0/v-deo.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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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😂👍
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.
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.
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
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. ;)
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.
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.
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.
Hey dude, Finland IS always clean, it is the behavior of the nation.
Welcome to your new home underground, and thank you for choosing Vault-tech.
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.
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
Yeap.
I have played countless of times when I was younger in those underground floorball places.
They are actually kind of comfy :3
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
Greetings from Finland🇫🇮
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.
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!
The entire Helsinki from ground down is swiss cheese. Tunnels everywhere. Some are used commercially and some are more support and storage.
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.
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.
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 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 love the British tea in the background, Yorkshire boy myself so thats my tea choice bro , pg tips is a good alternative
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
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!
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!
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.
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 😂
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Keep up the great videos! I'm not a service person but i appreciate your videos alot. Me and my 🐈🐈🐈are always watching together. Thank you and stay safe dude. 🐈🐈🐈
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.
Besides businesses, there's a lot of ways similar shelthers are used. My apartment building has it's own small shelter that is used as storage space for the residents. My uni has a larger shelther that has various club rooms and sporting areas, and sometimes different events organized in its larger rooms, for example concerts. There's another large shelther in the city that is used for shooting ranges.
Overall keeping the shelthers in a secondary use is a good way guarantee that they are maintained, and of course renting them out for different organizations helps with upkeep.
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.
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.
Those spaces are also used for ice hockey or ice skating. So many of them would need a bit more time and effort to prepare for shelters. Melting ice etc. But there is a lot of room is some of them. The cafeteria I've been in are usually serving the sporting activities that are going on down there.
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.
Nice video!
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.
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.
Been in those areas couple of times. There is those sports areas, cafeteria, kids playgrounds and much more.. About 5 floors down underground.
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.
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"
Switzerland has a pretty good network of underground bunkers etc.
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.
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.
My apartment building in Helsinki has two (light) shelters for the residents, these are mandatory. Normally these shelters are used for storing stuff, I have my own storage pace there. Yeah there are businesses run in underground, sport facilities etc, in Helsinki it's easy to build underground thanks to the granite bedrock. Also many of the underground metro stations serve as a shelters, too, if needed.
There are similar places in other cities as well like here in Vaasa there is a public shelter about 500m from where I live. It's basically a underground bunker that can be used as a shelter in crisis but normally there are some wrestling and martial arts facilities there.
Yep sporting fields are in use and other shelters are used as temporarly storages.
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 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.
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 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
Yep. The underground parts of Helsinki have normal businesses with the understanding that they have to be ok, if they're commandeered for civil protection.
Actually often in shopping centers the levels below ground hold the essential businesses like food markets.
And walking by tunnels in central Helsinki is a good way to avoid bad weather and a normal thing to do. (if the weather's bad enough.)
There's actually a similar shelter used for sports in Tampere as well.
There are some (rare) ice hockey rinks deep inside rock. With heavy usage. And swimming pools too. Makes sense to have them next to each other, as one needs cold, the other warmth.
There are a lot of floorball or badminton courts. A lot of gyms and martial arts places. Some with huge locker rooms and showers too. The ventilation is often actually perfect, though you might sense the small of wet rock/concrete. It's a way to utilize the facilities for non-crisis time activities. And then they keep maintained as well.
Now I actually remember more and more sports places 12-30 meters inside the rock that I have visited.
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They also made huge fresh water and fuel tanks inside of rock, so that they would be protected from bombings. Today they make more and more shared-purpose tunnels that take all communications, electricity, fresh water, distant heating water, distant cooling water, sewage inside a tunnel that you can also drive or march along. Great way to build city infrastructure to a place where there is always summer and dryish. Easy to fix, maintain and control.
There are also more and more huge heat/sewage cleaning / energy / heat / cooling facilities built inside rock. Think huge and multiply by ten. Several ramps where huge trucks can drive in. Nice place to keep also strategic military gear, like anti-air. Popping out from totally other corner, sometimes even from another suburb. You can also proceed in tunnel and straight from tunnel enter rooftops of highest buildings, with comms, laser-pointers or manpads.
Some of the bomb shelters date back before or during WW II. And is solution that still works. 12 meters of granite is too much even for atomic bomb. Though after that the radion would kill most likely more.
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E.g. Sweden has similar tunneling too, but no bomb shelter for every single house. In cities, and e.g. around airfields / strips. If Finland will get let's say 64 F-35:s, that all air power we have. Thus even one jet fighter is a strategic resource for Finland. Kept sometimes safe in granite tunnels/caves.
I have no confidential info, thus I can speculate about these.
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.
I live in small town about 15 000 people and "new" hospital that was build here during 90's has underground cave. Half of it is parking space for the hospital staff and other half is football field made for sportclubs and schools. Technical area has control and meeting rooms for the town management if needed. All the equipment is from 90's so all those classic computers has probably windows 95🙃.
2:37. We don’t have subway or metro anywhere else than Helsinki capitol are. But yeah, they are super clean.
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.
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.
we have skateboard center´s as well in there.
2:30 that metro is clean because it's brand new :D
The stores and stuff are every day use IIRC. We have gym at our local shelter, and larger shelters may have also sporting fields, like here, or Judo tatami placed so martial arts clubs can rent them. And the tunnels go really all around. Some you have to wear helmet, not to hurt your head on pipes and stuff. Others can accomodate APC´s.
Many areas have restricted access.
Itäkeskus swimming hall id one massive cave
That Metro station at the start of the video was one of the new ones in the west end of the metro line, and coincidentally the train also was from the newer batch. Older stations and trains are bit more run down :P
I went to school at helsinki downtown and I use to walk from the trains to school underground below the station and a couple of malls.
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
There are many shelters in other European cities as well. In Budapest there is shelter for around 480 thousand people, from this 220 thousand can be sheltered in the 2nd and 3rd metro lines, which have electricity and water supplies for 72 hours, air filtration systems and proper toilets, since the metro stations themselves are part of the shelter.
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
Of course they have stores and play stores because that helps with paying for the tunnels even a bit helps i think thats why there are those things
I guess many people have already answered but most of these spaces are in use, like municipal or private sports facilities etc. As the Baltic Shield is either above the ground or just under it, we have lots of underground caves and spaces in use.
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.
Here in turku finland there are many tunnels between hospitals also old army facilities have them also
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
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.
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.
I used to measure tunnels in Finland when I reached adulthood. These two videos are cool, but they barely show anything :D They show how an undeground place would look like, but these tunnels and underground halls and networks are literally filling most of Helsinki. There are tunnels for police and emergency vehicles to cut the traffic, there are tunnels used as parking space all around. As much as I do not miss working on the measuring, I still do miss seeing all the exciting tunnels underground.
I can't tell you exactly, but there are district heating tunnels between and under the cities in Finland, where you can basically drive a car. Also, several larger hills are hollow and even under certain forests large stores have been made to store vacuum-packed material needed during the war.
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.
Swedish Navy has Muskö navy base which has tunnels where they can berth their subs, frigates and corvettes.
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...