A native of the Penza region was Konstantin Yefremovich Anokhin (1913–1941) – a Soviet pilot, lieutenant, and flight commander of the 170th Fighter Aviation Regiment. His military valor was demonstrated literally from the very first days of the Great Patriotic War; exactly one month after the war began, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

Georgy Vladimirovich Kutuzov – a native of Penza, a Bolshevik who heroically died defending Penza at the end of May 1918 during the White-Czech uprising.

On October 3, 1941, Captain Vasily Dmitrievich Gulyaev, commander of the second aviation squadron, did not return from a combat mission. On that unusually warm, slightly cloudy autumn day, pilot Gulyaev received his assignment. At noon, he appeared over the village of Shepetlevo. A German column of tanks and motorized infantry was steadily advancing toward Bryansk, crushing resistance on the ground. Suddenly, a nimble Yak-1 burst out from behind the clouds...

Nikolai Pavlovich Zadornov was a Russian writer and screenwriter, and also the father of the satirist Mikhail Zadornov. Nikolai Pavlovich was born in Penza in 1909. The house where his parents lived at that time still stands. The house was built in 1893 and is an example of a semi-brick house, which became common at the end of the nineteenth century.