Petrozavodsk (Russian: Петрозаводск, IPA: [pʲɪtrəzɐˈvotsk]; Karelian, Vepsian and Finnish: Petroskoi)[11] is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, which stretches along the western shore of Lake Onega for some 27 kilometers (17 mi).

However, Gylling quickly became unpopular amongst Soviet authorities during the same decade and ended up being executed as part of the Great Purge, leading to the city never being renamed.

Petrozavodsk is sometimes referred to as Kalininsk, after Mikhail Kalinin, in some older Soviet-era maps, regardless of the city never officially having such a name.

Archeological discoveries in the urban area indicate the presence of a settlement as far back as seven thousand years ago, and during the Middle Ages the site of modern city was marked by several lakeside villages.

By 1717, Petrovskaya Sloboda had grown into the largest settlement in Karelia, with about 3,500 inhabitants, a timber fort, a covered market, and miniature palaces of the Tsar and Menshikov.

The church retained its original iconostasis until this relic of the Tsar Peter the Great's reign was destroyed by fire on October 30, 1924.

Designed to provide cannons for the ongoing Russo-Turkish Wars, the foundry was named Alexandrovsky, after Alexander Nevsky, who was considered a patron saint of the region.

Local pundits claim that the first railway in the world (чугунный колесопровод) was inaugurated for industrial uses of the Alexandrovsky foundry in 1788.

Although Emperor Paul abolished Olonets Governorate, it was revived as a separate guberniya in 1801, with Petrozavodsk as its administrative center.

Petrozavodsk is distinguished among other towns of North Russia by its Neoclassical architectural heritage, which includes the Round Square (1775, reconstructed in 1789 and 1839) and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (consecrated in 1832).

The suburb of Martsialnye Vody is the oldest spa in Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1714 and visited by the Tsar on four occasions.

From Petrozavodsk Harbor, a hydrofoil service of "KareliaFlot" company carries people to the island of Kizhi, a World Heritage Site with an outdoor museum of ancient wooden architecture.

Petrozavodsk station is a major junction of railway lines (to Saint Petersburg, Murmansk, Sortavala, Kostomuksha).

As part of the investment program of JSC «RZD» in 2005, a section of the Idel — Petrozavodsk — Svir railway was electrified.

In April of 1918, Ivan Artemievich Maminov launched the first "bus" in Petrozavodsk, which shuttled people from the railway station to the city centre, breaking the monopoly that cab drivers had previously held.

The alternation of milder and colder air masses causes rapid changes in temperatures, especially during the cool half of the year.

The lake influence is stronger in summer, where Petrozavodsk has quite low diurnal temperature variation with mild nights for its latitude.