On a Saturday morning in Helsinki, Finland, Lassi Kurkija\u0308rvi and his 4-year-old daughter stepped into an elevator near the Hakaniemi market square. After a 60-foot descent through the city\u2019s granite bedrock, the girl took off down a tunnel to the cavernous \u201cLeikkiluola\u201d (or \u201cPlay Cave\u201d) and disappeared into a palm tree-themed adventure maze.<\/p>\n
Mr. Kurkija\u0308rvi, 45, a father of four, also likes the Play Cave. It\u2019s ideal for last-minute play dates, and the activities, like rope ladders and trampolines, are challenging for his kids. \u201cThere\u2019s safety,\u201d he said. \u201cWith a little risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the rock cave\u2019s other purpose \u2014 a fortified bunker to protect Finns in the event of a military invasion or nuclear bomb \u2014 Mr. Kurkija\u0308rvi said he never thought about it much until Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cOK, this is also a civil defense shelter,\u2019\u201d he recalled thinking. His oldest daughter got upset with him when he brought it up. \u201cShe said, \u2018Dad, you told me there\u2019s going to be no more wars!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
After the Cold War, most of the European countries that had been building civilian shelters abandoned the effort. But Finland, which shares an 835-mile border with Russia and ceded a tenth of its territory to the Soviet Union during World War II, never stopped. Today, it trails only Switzerland in shelter spots per capita: In Helsinki, a city of about 700,000, approximately 5,500 civil defense shelters can house every resident, with room to spare.<\/p>\n
About 50 of these sites are in massive subterranean spaces, which are marked by signs emblazoned with a blue triangle against an orange background. Day to day, they serve as everything from parking lots to metro stations, skateboard parks, go-kart tracks, archery ranges, and Helsinki\u2019s beloved It\u00e4keskus swimming hall. One of them, the Vapaan Taiteen Tila performance space, offers stage productions and art exhibitions in a cave near the University of the Arts Helsinki.<\/p>\n
But, as more Finns are realizing, all of them are designed to withstand building collapses, blast waves and radiation.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s full-scale attack on Ukraine \u201cchanged a lot,\u201d said Pasi Raatikainen, a senior civil defense planner with the Helsinki City Rescue Department. \u201cIn \u201922, there was a humongous increase in calls coming in: \u2018Where\u2019s my shelter? Where\u2019s my shelter? Where\u2019s my shelter?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The cave spaces are rented out by the city on the condition that they can be emptied and converted back to shelter use within 72 hours. That same requirement applies to the shelters in many of the city\u2019s residential and commercial buildings, including apartment blocks, larger offices, schools and museums. Mandated by law, they\u2019re usually in the cellar or on the ground floor. Finns too young to remember the Cold War may be aware that these rooms have ventilation systems to filter out nuclear fallout and chemical agents, but they still tend to think of them as storage areas for bicycles and Christmas decorations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was asking people, and they didn\u2019t even know if they had one,\u201d said Eriz Moreno, a Spanish photographer who started documenting shelters in apartment buildings after he moved to Finland in 2020. \u201cNow, because of the international situation, people are rediscovering them.\u201d<\/p>\n
That includes Finnish architects, said Teemu Kurkela, a founder of the Helsinki-based firm JKMM Architects. In recent decades, the sense in Finnish architecture circles had been that the shelter mandate was out of date. \u201cWe were thinking, with modern warfare security, you don\u2019t need to go into hiding anymore, that it\u2019s more sophisticated,\u201d Mr. Kurkela said. \u201cBut Russia showed us, they don\u2019t do modern warfare. It\u2019s old-fashioned bombing of civilians. Even with drones, it\u2019s useful to go to shelters.\u201d<\/p>\n