Google Maps says Hamina is a 2 hour drive from Helsinki, can any Finns comment on if this is an accurate time? Or is it one of those 6 months of the year the roads are dead sort of thing?
It's hardly some dirt road in the middle of nowhere, so yes, 2 hours is probably accurate.
I have been closely following the news about this particular datacenter and it really is strange that Google hasn't found enough engineers for the job there. I have been seeing the ads for the jobs at Hamina datacentre since last one year or so.
Besides they must have thought the name Google is enough to get smart people where ever they want.
btw this is what centre of Hamina looks like : http://torikamera.haminetti.net/user/toricam.html
Plus as the article says - this is really the St. Petersburg/Stalingrad/Leningrad data center without the political problems of having to keep renaming it.