July 16, 1962 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev stopped into the Petrozavodsk briefly during his railway trip from Moscow to Murmansk.

Khrushchev was the first Soviet leader which visited the Petrozavodsk. At July 1933 Joseph Stalin ignored the capital of the Karelian ASSR during his trip by paddle steamer Anohin over the Ladoga and Onego Lakes and the White Sea – Baltic Canal.