Brief - The Hustle

The father of Angry Birds wants to build an underwater tunnel

Written by Wes Schlagenhauf | Jun 30, 2020 8:33:02 AM

Peter Vesterbacka, the red hoodie-wearing, eccentric game developer who created the all-mighty Angry Birds franchise, wants to change his forte from destruction to construction by building an underground tunnel between Finland and Estonia.

But this isn’t your everyday traffic tunnel: This one will cost $18B, span 80 miles, run almost entirely underwater, and connect the Tallinn airport (the capital of Estonia) to three destinations in Helsinki (the capital of Finland).

One of the stops being an artificial island of his own design. Naturally. 

As if the idea wasn’t ambitious enough… 

He wants it done in 7 years — December 24, 2024.

For context, the recently opened Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland is the largest traffic tunnel in the world at 35 miles long, and it took 17 years to build.

But Vesterbacka’s all in

According to Buzzfeed, he’s even learned Mandarin to properly broker a deal with potential Chinese backers, explaining, “if you are going to ask them for 15B euros, it would be polite to do it in their own language.”

With his tunnel, he hopes to turn Helsinki and Tallinn into some kind of mega-metropolitan-twin city he calls the “FinEst Bay Area.” A Nordic Silicon Valley of sorts, only “without its huge housing problems,” he assures. 

He hopes to start drilling later this year.