Government officials from Ukrainian cities recently toured a massive underground facility carved into bedrock beneath Helsinki, marveling at a space designed to protect 6,000 people during emergencies.
These visitors represent just a fraction of approximately 800 international delegations that have examined Helsinki’s Merihaka civil protection facility — Finland’s largest dual-purpose shelter that has become a showcase for Finnish businesses seeking international customers worried about regional conflicts in Ukraine and Iran.
The enormous underground space measures 71,000 cubic meters, equivalent to a seven-story office building. Constructed in 2003, the facility operates 25 meters below ground and features athletic courts, fitness facilities, and children’s play areas used by residents every day.
When emergencies arise, the space can transform into a protective shelter equipped with sleeping quarters, water storage, and sanitation facilities within three days.
Finland’s difficult wartime relationship with Russia during World War Two shaped current building requirements that mandate protective shelters beneath residential and commercial structures of specified sizes.
These regulations have given Finnish firms expertise in shelter design and maintenance, including specialized radiation-resistant entryways, air filtration systems, emergency electrical systems, communications infrastructure, and waste management networks.
International visitors have included government representatives, business executives, and officials from major corporations like oil company Saudi Aramco, according to authorities and industry representatives.
Resilience Center Finland, a trade promotion organization launched in March, reports that the nation’s security and defense exports total tens of billions of euros, with shelter sales reaching several dozen million euros and showing substantial expansion opportunities.
“Within two years we won’t need to compete fiercely with our peers over getting a gig. Rather, it will very soon be a question of capacity running out,” said Ilkka Kivisaari, CEO of Finnish-Swiss-owned Verona Shelters Group, pointing to strong demand from Poland and Germany plus significant interest from Middle Eastern nations.
The Merihaka facility represents one of 48 large shelters and 5,500 smaller protective spaces throughout Helsinki — part of 50,500 such structures built across Finland following a Soviet invasion attempt during World War Two.
At another Helsinki shelter capable of housing 3,800 people, Juha Simola, CEO of Finnish Temet Group, arrived directly from the Czech Republic following a trade mission led by the country’s leader Alexander Stubb.
Simola was demonstrating shelter technology to representatives from Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, and mentioned receiving inquiries from other Gulf region countries during the conflict with Iran.
“There was a quite big hit in Abu Dhabi and I got a phone call from there that please come quickly,” Simola told Reuters, declining to provide additional details.
His company is constructing a manufacturing facility in the United Arab Emirates, which plans to build hundreds of protective shelters, he said.
Temet, operating in this sector for seven decades, aims to generate 80% of revenue from international sales in coming years, according to Simola.
While Temet and Verona lead Finland’s shelter industry, several smaller companies focus on specialized components including blast-resistant doors and communication systems.
Building regulations require protective shelters beneath structures exceeding 1,200 square meters, said Pauliina Eskola, who heads the rescue department at Finland’s interior ministry, emphasizing the importance of standards and quality control.
Shelter construction costs for new apartment buildings in Finland range from 1.5% to 4% of total building expenses, paid by property developers, Verona’s Kivisaari explained.
High-profile visitors to Merihaka in recent years have included Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Polish counterpart Karol Nawrocki, and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
“We came to gain the experience that’s available here, and we have a very big dream of building a sports complex like this,” said Tetiana Grunska, deputy head of the Balakliia City Military Administration in Ukraine, during a visit by the Mayors’ Club Ukraine, which represents over 600 current and former municipal leaders.
Poland is also modernizing its shelter infrastructure.
Polish authorities allocated 5.8 billion zlotys ($1.59 billion) over the past two years for rebuilding collective defense facilities, the interior ministry reported.
“We’re building from scratch. The situation in this respect was really dire in Poland – the last shelter was built in the mid‑1990s, so for 30 years nothing was done,” said Robert Klonowski, deputy director in the Polish interior ministry.
Ukraine and Poland have enacted new laws requiring shelters in certain new construction projects, but Mayors’ Club board member Yuliya Chufistova noted that stricter requirements have caused private developers to abandon projects in Ukraine.
“The price is higher when rules are more strict, so we need to find the balance,” she said.
Near Ukraine’s front lines in Grunska’s hometown of Balakliia, daily warning sirens during the war’s fifth year demonstrate the value of dual-purpose protective facilities.
One of the community’s few bomb shelters was constructed over the past year to function as a school, enabling children to attend classes several floors underground, protected from Russian drone and missile strikes.
Warning sirens sound 15 times daily or more, said boxing instructor Volodymyr Borshch.
“I 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,” he told Reuters.
