On Tuesday, exactly one month prior to the start of the Winter Olympic Games, Russian forces went on combat-alert in Sochi and tightened restrictions on access to the Black Sea resort.
President Vladimir Putin has increased security across Russia after two suicide bomb attacks in the southern city of Volgograd killed 34 people, aware that the success or failure of the Sochi Games will help shape his legacy.
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 from going ahead, reports Reuters.
Police began to impose long-planned restrictions that will heavily restrain entry into Sochi and limit the movements of its residents, who had mixed feelings about the lockdown.
Alexander Valov, a blogger from Sochi, said the resort is turning into a sort of concentration camp which will naturally deliver a serious blow to tourism and the huge number of people at the Olympics. "When the town is in such a state of siege I don't think it will be comfortable here," he added.
However, other residents and foreign visitors on the streets of Sochi told Reuters they welcomed the beefed-up security.
Dina Kovalenko, selling tickets for town excursions at a kiosk, said the stricter securit was required after the bombing in Volgograd.
Nathan Wright, a British tourist posing with friends for photographs near the town center, said there was definitely a sense of safety in Sochi.
According to Russian officials, 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.
The heightened security measures will stay in force until March 21, as ordered by Putin in a decree last August.
For the time being, the only road vehicles allowed into Sochi are those which have been officially registered in the city, which have been accredited for the Games, or which are providing essential services. Visitors must also register with local authorities within three days or face expulsion.
Movement is being even more tightly controlled in several high security zones, where only those accredited for the Games will be allowed. The zones include a swathe of territory extending to Russia's southern border with Abkhazia in neighboring Georgia, some 25 miles away.
A transport directorate said the restrictions are to make the roads free and easy for spectators, athletes and members of the Olympic family to move around.
Local businesses have been ordered to stock up on supplies, enabling them carry on without outside deliveries for a few weeks.
Moscow has deployed regular troops as well as anti-aircraft batteries to protect the Games from air attack. Last month Russian bloggers posted photographs of several surface-to-air missile installations within yards of the Olympic venue.
The region's air force commander said squadrons of Mig and Sukhoi fighter jets are ready to repel attack from any altitude.
Valov, a critical blogger, said many residents planned to leave for the duration of the Games, adding that a mass expulsion of migrant workers was also causing headaches. He also said they were desperately short of cleaners. As a result the town is looking dirtier. There's simply no one to do this.
More than 200 people protested against how Moscow has run the Games on Sunday, under the banner: "Natives of Sochi own the Games, not the visitors." However, Putin, who attended a rehearsal of the Games' opening ceremony in Sochi on Saturday, has eased curbs of demonstrations, allowing groups to hold some marches and rallies at sites approved by the security services.
Campaign groups calling for everything from gay rights to political reform have complained that a blanket ban on rallies, imposed in August as part of earlier security measures, violated the Russian constitution.