Swimming, courtesy of the cold war

One of the side effects of having a large ex-communist country for a neighbour, is that every public building, block of flats and area has a nuclear shelter, complete with large, heavy, metal double doors, own water supply etc. for use in direst need. Nowadays, direst need means that in blocks of flats they are used as storerooms, and in the music centre here in Kuopio, for instance, someone has seen fit to install a full size snooker table, for the use of the town orchestra!!! We have a swimming pool about 3 kms away, in an area called Lippumäki, or Tickethill. As the young violinist had swimming lessons in the spring we went to find this for the first time today. We found the address, drove there (it's cold and raining, and we were in a bit of a hurry). We found the signpost, directing us round the back of Lidl, but on first appearances it seemed that there was just a carpark and a hill there, nothing else. As we approached, we realised that there was a large entrance set into the hill which proved to be the swimming pool and an ice rink. This was a tunnel complex, (still complete with very large steel doors) housing the swimming pool and ice rink, and was probably our first experience of swimming underground, but we'll be going again, as for the princely sum of 4.60€the young violinist and I both got to swim, and have a sauna. There was an adults pool, kiddies pool, and a jacuzzi whirlpool thingy, all built in the last couple of years. If I remember correctly, some of the shelters date from the second world war, when Finland was at war with both Russia and Germany, so this may have been a bomb shelter, but as it's a relatively new area, probably more likely cold war era. Still, good to see intelligent reuse of facilities!