Why Finland Built An Underground City

Why Finland Built An Underground City

Beneath the capital of Finland lies a massive network of bunkers and tunnels spread out all across the city. It’s so vast, that it can fit about 150% of Helsinkis entire population. You may be asking yourself why something like this is even needed, but if you zoom out of Helsinki, it’ll become obvious why. This is the story of why Finland has built a large underground network, and what's inside.

[Zander]

Finland might just be the hardest country to invade in all of Europe. Generations of defensive infrastructure, top tier equipment now that their in NATO and an unbreakable mindset they call “Sisu”. They also have over a million reserve troops in a country with less than 6 million people which is absolutely insane. If Sparta existed in the 21st century, if would be Finland. 🇫🇮

[kiiturii]

as a Finn who has lived in Helsinki almost my entire life, when I read the title I was like "we have an underground city?", I never realized these facilities were intended as bunkers lmao, been in quite a few of these sport centers and malls that go underground but never thought about it more than that, didn't know they were connected either

[petrhajduk]

Fun fact: You can walk from Kamppi all the way to the Central Railway Station through underground paths. It's probably close to 1 km in total. Very handy in bad weather.

[Peter_Pan_]

As a person already commented "not all information of Finland's tunnels and bunkers are public". For example, I live in a small town that could house 50 thousend 300m below surface carved into solid granit.

[nyobi]

It's also good to remember that not all information of Finland's tunnels and bunkers are public. Some years ago it was reported that Finland have underground tunnels that can take you far out of Helsinki. I dare say Finland could easily win a war against Russia in the current state. Finland have greatly over estimated Russia's power and prepared for the worst some 100 years, but the war in Ukraine has showed everyone that Russia is very weak and it doesn't have a lot of tactical knowledge.

Finland is like a fortress with it's thick forests and lakes, it's very difficult to invade using armored vehicles which is Russia's main spearhead force. Russia's powerful airforce would not be able to offer a lot of ground support to it's land units in the forests as it's hard to track enemy in such conditions, especially someone as experienced as Finland. Finland excels in guerilla tactics, they have large amount of units trained just for that, and they are very capable of cutting enemy logistics and support lines. Every bridge in Finland has been built to be easily taken out with mines, allowing Finns to direct enemy movement into tiny bottlenecks where the enemy becomes easy target for EU's largest artillery force.

Ukraine has wide plains which allowed Russia to push deep using their armored units but they can't find same success in Finland due to the lakes and forests. Invasion of Finland would be EXTREMELY costly. Even if the invading force would win in the end, it would take a couple decades to recover from that. It's hard to find support for a war as costly as that and Putin knows this. Putin himself has let people understand that Russia would not stand silently if Finland joins NATO or purchases too strong fighter planes and Finland did just that, but Putin changed his words to "it's okay".

[wilhelmsarasalo]

As a kid in the 1960's we explored those as they were under construction, with flashlights. Finland is not (or was not) big on restricting access. Later I joined a gym in one of those, you took a elevator way down and there were blast doors and a gym, in Maunula. They used the old public transit pass tech from when I lived in Finland for the gym, which I thought was pretty cool.

[GilangMentariHamidy]

I lived in Finland for a year, and it is normal to see in every building there is always an evacuation shelter sign somewhere (orange background with blue triangle). In my previous apartment, it was used as a storage space, but it has a thick steel door. When I moved to western Europe, my apartment building barely has any livable basement space except only for mechanical equipment.

[finnishculturalchannel]

Couple of anecdotes: There's a sauna in 1 410 m depth in the Pyhäjärvi mine. The Finnish elevator and escalator manufacturer Kone uses mineshaft to test tall building elevators.

[Meitti]

One thing to mention is Finland isn't very geologically active because its in the middle of large tectonic plate, so underground bunkers are very safe to build. Biggest earthquake Finland has ever experienced made windows and food plates jingle a bit.

[rombbu]

Walking around central Helsinki is much more comfortable when you use the underground paths: no cold wind, slippery ground and busy traffic in your way 🥰

[leipajuusto]

most of those bunkers are used as parking space. They so well masked to look like your plain old underground parking spaces that only thing that tells their not that is the 40cm thick steel door right in front the garage door.

[toinenosoite]

Good video! A "tiny" mistake, though: 900 000 is not six percent of the entire population - it is 16 percent. And for the US that would be like 53 million.

[stephenmarcus]

Finland is a role model for the World in civil defense. Thousands of years ago large underground cities dotted Anatolia, probably due to some environmental calamity, so there are many purposes to building down.

[EiraAimo]

Its also because of lack of free space to build new stuff when city grows. You can go up..or down. Or build artificial islands to the sea etc. There is also advantages being underground if you think like heating/cooling solution. Bedrock works as thermostat and gives you firm base to build things otherwise would be impossible or would disturb normal city life at street level.

[poju]

as a Finnish guy, I didn't even know about this

[xWood]

The shelters are really well prepared and good, but some of the Helsinki bunkers are a bit moldy and old because they haven't been renovated. They would still work as bunkers and the life support systems are up to date. But they should be renovated according to the fire department

[anttikettunen]

(as a Finn)

Well you know. When you live next to russia, some countermeasures are to be expected.

[TjarpDex]

Excuse my pride but whenever I watch a video about Finnish defense I just get filled with a kinda "FUCK YEAH WE ARE" attitude, for real tho I never thought we were this super ultra prepared for the absolute worst which is weird because I am personally always prepared for the worst in my everyday life lol, our tiny (population I mean, land area is quite big) country boasting the best artillery in Europe, seems kinda hard to believe but FUCK YEAH DON'T FUCK WITH US!

[alexp]

We found that kind of an emergency exit path in my elementary school's bunker back in the day. There were shovels ready so we started digging, sadly we didn't get far before the teacher found out and we got some shit for it, but that was my 15mins as Michael Scofield

[chinerpeton]

So you're telling me that most unrealistic thing about the Metro series is the lack of the Finnish Bunker Empire playing Uno Reverse Card on the Russians?