I'm coming close to the end of a two month visit and can tell you that security is tighter than I've seen since I started coming regularly in late 2012, but life is mostly going on as normal. Not much military in the city, though I feel like I see the red-jacket national police units out more than usual. Domestic airport security has tightened substantially - it was like a transatlantic SSSS with swabbing, turning on laptops, ect.. just to enter the AYT domestic terminal check in area recently (though it actually wasn't as severe as it could of been at SAW this morning). Security in the city remains wildly inconsistent as it has always been - they are occasionally wanding ordinary-sized briefcases and backpacks on the metro for the first time, though the searches still seem pretty light and arbitrary. I've seen national police ID checks at metro and metrobus stations within the Kadikoy Municipality for the first time on this visit, too - really thought that only happened on rural roads in the eastern part of the country before this year!

I try not to let security concerns impact my day to day life, but there's wild rumors spreading via expat social media (when it works without a VPN) and some foreigners are definitely avoiding certain pieces of infrastructure and touristic areas at peak hours. As we commonly assure ourselves on threads like these, random violence and tragic accidents can occur anywhere in the world - yet I'll be a little more relieved than usual to get out of here in a couple weeks...