Sochi visitors face armed guards, full

Police officers patrol a train at the train station in the Adler district of Sochi. Photo: Reuter

Sochi: Fans of downhill skiing would be forgiven for thinking they had arrived at a military base when showing up in Sochi for the Winter Olympics.

Ticket holders must walk under an array of cameras hooked up to face-recognition software before traversing the checkpoints and the mesh fences to make their way beyond the armed guards. If picked out, they then have to step into a full-body scanner. All spectators must pass through metal detectors twice and present their documents three times.

'The guests are the lucky ones,' said a man who works for a logistics company that helped organise the opening ceremony. 'The staff isn't. I spend hours getting through security checks every day.'

On guard: Military police officers at a train station in Sochi. Photo: Reuters

While heightened scrutiny is the norm at such events, the edges are sharper in the Russian Black Sea resort town following a spate of terrorist bombings that killed more than 30 people.

An Islamic militant group last week posted a video threatening to deliver a 'present' for visitors to Sochi, which was sealed off on January 7 as Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to do everything to make the games safe without 'depressing participants'. The government has deployed 40,000 police and special services officers.

'Of course these measures are a bit annoying,' said the head of Russia's curling federation, Dmitry Svishev. 'But then you think about what efforts are taken to guarantee the safety of all the spectators and you think about your personal safety - and you calm down.'

The lockdown starts with extra layers of checks at the airport, rebuilt for the games for $US440 million. Security cameras pepper the terminal, some low enough to touch so they can get a better picture for the face-recognition software.

Mountains of deodorants, water bottles and beer cans clog containers as all liquids have been banned for travellers on the trains that ferry passengers to the sports venues. The rail link to the Olympic venues passes through police checkpoints at every station. All passengers are shepherded through metal detectors and searched manually by security personnel.

Spectators need to register ahead of time to gain access. Full-body scanners stand ready at the entrance to the Olympic Park complex, which encompasses six arenas and the medals plaza. Once inside, identity checks are required again for access to individual buildings.

A Pantsir artillery system, capable of engaging multiple targets as far as 20 kilometres away, is ensconced on the snowy slopes of the mountain area that will host the skiing, snowboard and bobsled competitions.

For the London Olympics in 2012, the British. armed forces deployed Eurofighter Typhoon jets and Royal Navy helicopters, while anti-aircraft missiles were set up near the venues. A total of 17,000 British military personnel were involved in addition to staff provided by the world's largest security company, G4S.

In Sochi, a city of 345,000 people, the road to the remote biathlon centre snakes through checkpoints manned by agents of the Federal Security Service, the successor of the communist-era KGB, while special forces units in white camouflage practise nearby.

Back downtown, Sergei Cherepov shows off the capabilities of the city council's situation centre, which monitors 1400 civilian surveillance cameras around the town. They are programmed to alert the 40 operators to the appearance of alien objects or large groups of people gathering.

'You can identify a pack of cigarettes from a rooftop with these,' said Mr Cherepov, the centre's director.

Bloomberg