Soviet authorities prepared for the Olympics with exceptional care. Alongside building sports venues and repairing roads, hotels, and restaurants, Moscow introduced additional measures aimed at preventing crime and other incidents during the competition.
According to the article, people with prior convictions were массово sent beyond the 101-kilometer boundary. Repeat offenders were placed in pretrial detention centers, special holding facilities, and psychiatric hospitals in an effort to isolate in advance those regarded as a potential threat to public order.
The article says the authorities also entered into a secret agreement with crime boss Anatoly Cherkasov, known by the nickname Cherkas, who at that time was considered the head of the Soviet criminal underworld. Under that arrangement, he promised to keep pickpockets, robbers, and other criminals from Union regions out of the capital.
Preventive arrests, the text states, were also used against people seen as sympathetic to the dissident movement. At the same time, the KGB received information that Western intelligence services might attempt provocations in major Russian cities, primarily Leningrad and Moscow.
However, according to the source, the most alarming signal came from Kazan, which in those years was closed to foreign tourists. The city became a particular focus amid security concerns during the Olympic period.