Russian forces went on combat alert in Sochi and tightened restrictions on access to the Black Sea resort on Tuesday, exactly one month before the start of the Winter Olympic Games.
Aware that the success or failure of the Sochi Games will help shape his legacy, President Vladimir Putin has increased security across Russia following two suicide bomb attacks in the southern city of Volgograd which killed 34 people.
Moscow's most wanted man, the Chechen insurgent leader Doku Umarov, has urged militants who want to carve an Islamic state in Russia's North Caucasus region to use "maximum force" to prevent the Games going ahead.
Police began to impose long-planned restrictions that will heavily curtail entry into Sochi and limit the movements of its residents, who had mixed feelings about the clampdown.
"The resort is turning into a sort of concentration camp. Naturally this will deliver a serious blow to tourism and the huge number of people at the Olympics," said Alexander Valov, a Sochi resident and blogger.
"When the town is in such a state of siege I don't think it will be comfortable here."
But other residents and foreign visitors on the streets of Sochi told Reuters they welcomed the beefed-up security.
"After what happened in Volgograd it's necessary," said Dina Kovalenko, at a kiosk selling tickets for town excursions.
"There is definitely a sense we have here in Sochi that we feel good, we feel safe," said Nathan Wright, a British tourist posing with friends for photographs near the town center.
Authorities have deployed an additional 30,000 police and Interior Ministry troops in the resort, bringing the total number of personnel providing security at the Games to about 37,000, according to Russian officials.
(Reuters)
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