![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Finland-flag.jpg\" "\\"Finland-flag\\"\/")
A FINNISH flag flutters during the parliamentary election day, in Helsinki, Finland, April 2, 2023. \u2014 LEHTIKUVA\/RONI REKOMAA VIA REUTERS<\/p>\n A FINNISH flag flutters during the parliamentary election day, in Helsinki, Finland, April 2, 2023. \u2014 LEHTIKUVA\/RONI REKOMAA VIA REUTERS<\/p>\n
HELSINKI\/BALAKLIIA, Ukraine \u2014 Visiting mayors from Ukrainian cities took pictures inside an enormous cave carved in the bedrock below the Finnish capital, taking in the size and the possibilities of a space that can accommodate 6,000 people.<\/p>\n
They are among around 800 foreign delegations who have visited Helsinki\u2019s Merihaka civil shelter \u2013 the biggest of the country\u2019s dual-use shelters and now a major shop window for Finnish companies looking to export to buyers concerned about the war in Ukraine and, increasingly, the conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n
At 71,000 cubic meters, the shelter is roughly the volume of a seven-storey office building. It was built in 2003 and has sports pitches, a gym and a children\u2019s playground 25 meters (80 ft) underground that are in use daily.<\/p>\n
Should it be needed in an emergency, it can be converted with stores of bunk beds, water tanks and portable toilets within 72 hours.<\/p>\n
GROWTH POTENTIAL
As well as being a testament to Finland\u2019s painful history with neighboring Russia during World War Two, building such shelters remains mandatory underneath residential and commercial buildings of a certain size.<\/p>\n
With that requirement, Finnish companies are skilled in their construction and upkeep \u2013 such as fitting and maintaining radiation-proof doors, ventilation equipment and emergency power, as well as communications and sewerage networks.<\/p>\n
Politicians, administrators and businesses from overseas, such as oil giant Saudi Aramco, have all sought information or visits, authorities and companies involved said.<\/p>\n
Resilience Center Finland, an exports body established in March, said Finland\u2019s security and defense exports stood at tens of billions of euros, with shelter sales amounting to some dozen million euros, with significant growth potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin two years we won\u2019t need to compete fiercely with our peers over getting a gig. Rather, it will very soon be a question of capacity running out,\u201d Ilkka Kivisaari, CEO of Finnish-Swiss-owned Verona Shelters Group, said, citing high demand in countries such as Poland and Germany and high interest from the Middle East.<\/p>\n
INTEREST FROM GULF
Merihaka is among 48 big and 5,500 smaller shelters in Helsinki \u2013 among 50,500 constructed around the country, the legacy of a Soviet invasion attempt during World War Two.<\/p>\n
At the entrance of another shelter in the city, which can house 3,800 people, Juha Simola, the CEO of Finnish Temet Group arrived straight from the Czech Republic after an export promotion trip led by Finland\u2019s President Alexander Stubb.<\/p>\n
He was showing shelter technology to visitors from Saudi Aramco, the world\u2019s top oil exporter, and said he had also had interest from elsewhere in the Gulf during the war in Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a quite big hit in Abu Dhabi and I got a phone call from there that please come quickly,\u201d Mr. Simola told Reuters, without giving further details.<\/p>\n
He said his company was building a factory in the United Arab Emirates, which he said was planning to construct hundreds of shelters.<\/p>\n
Temet, which has been in the business for 70 years, hopes to book 80% of its sales from exports over the coming years, Mr. Simola said.<\/p>\n
While Temet and Verona are Finland\u2019s biggest firms operating in shelter solutions, there are several smaller companies specialising in specific areas such as blast doors and communications.<\/p>\n
SPORTS COMPLEX DREAM
Construction of a bomb shelter is mandatory underneath buildings exceeding 1,200 square meters (12,900 square feet), Pauliina Eskola, the Finnish interior ministry\u2019s head of rescue department, said, stressing the need for regulation and quality.<\/p>\n
The cost of a shelter below a new apartment block in Finland, paid for by the building\u2019s owner, is between 1.5% and 4% of the total construction costs, Verona\u2019s Kivisaari said.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his Polish counterpart Karol Nawrocki and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have all visited Merihaka in the past years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came to gain the experience that\u2019s available here, and we have a very big dream of building a sports complex like this,\u201d Tetiana Grunska, deputy head of the Balakliia City Military Administration in Ukraine, said during the visit of the Mayors\u2019 Club Ukraine, an organization uniting over 600 current and former city mayors and territorial community heads.<\/p>\n
POLAND \u2018BUILDING FROM SCRATCH\u2019
Poland is also looking to overhaul its shelters.<\/p>\n
This year and last, Poland has allocated 5.8 billion zlotys ($1.59 billion) to the reconstruction of its collective defense facilities, its interior ministry said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re building from scratch. The situation in this respect was really dire in Poland \u2013 the last shelter was built in the mid\u2011 1990s, so for 30 years nothing was done,\u201d Robert Klonowski, deputy director in the Polish interior ministry, said.<\/p>\n
Ukraine and Poland have already introduced new legislation to make shelters mandatory in certain new buildings but Mayors\u2019 Club board member Yuliya Chufistova said doing so had led to private investors canceling projects in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe price is higher when rules are more strict, so we need to find the balance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
AIR RAID ALERTS IN UKRAINE
Back near the Ukrainian frontline, in Grunska\u2019s home town of Balakliia, the daily sirens in a war now in its fifth year show what would be the value of such dual use facilities.<\/p>\n
One of the town\u2019s few bomb shelters was built over the past year to double up as a school, allowing children to go back to classes several floors below ground, protected from Russia\u2019s drone and missile attacks.<\/p>\n
Air raid alerts sound 15 times a day or more, boxing coach Volodymyr Borshch said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like there to be an underground shelter for sports activities as well, where it would be possible not just to wait out the air raid alert, but to carry out a full training session while we wait,\u201d he told Reuters. ($1 = 3.6511 zlotys) \u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A FINNISH flag flutters during the parliamentary election day, in Helsinki, Finland, April 2, 2023. \u2014 LEHTIKUVA\/RONI REKOMAA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[87],"tags":[158,113,4344],"class_list":["post-102418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-helsinki","tag-finland","tag-helsinki","tag-reuters"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116713264698750507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}