The Petrodvorets Factory is the oldest in Russia, it was founded by Peter I in 1721. In 1946 the Petrodvorets Watch Factory developed the first wristwatch model. The first batch of Raketa watches was published in 1961. The plant got the name "Raketa" in 1961 in honor of First in the world cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and the first flight into space, but in the countries of Western Europe and America the name was associated more with the missile weapons of the USSR. The factory produced watches for polar expeditions, the space industry, the Soviet army and the KGB. The Raketa watches have a rich history - they were worn by Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev.
The enterprise was one of the 13 largest watch factories in the Soviet Union, mass production of watches for personal use was established there. The Raketa watches manufactured in Petrodvorets were exported to more than 30 countries of the world. At the Petrodvorets Watch Factory, a single mechanism was created for all Raketa-2609NA watch models, on the basis of which more than two dozen Raketa watch modifications were produced: with automatic winding, with a calendar, anti-magnetic, for the blind (2610NA), with a 24-hour scale (2623.N) - for people working in difficult conditions, where it is difficult to distinguish between day and night for polar explorers, submariners, etc. The first watches under the Raketa brand were the models “Russia”, “Record”, “Petrodvorets”. The "Record" watch was the second original design, its thickness was 2.7 mm, and it remains the flattest of all created in the USSR and the thinnest mechanical watch in the world with a seconds hand. In 1965, the "Record" watch received a gold medal at the International Leipzig Fair. Mass production of Raketa watches began in 1964, and by 1980 the plant was annually producing 4,600,000 Raketa watches. Etc...