Both Russia and Croatia are the great seafaring nations with glorious past, complicated present and, hopefully, a rewarding future. The countries that historically had long sea borders are almost destined to become the global shipbuilding centres. Since the ancient times, the marine shipping routes have connected the most distant nations, countries and entire continents through trade and economic relations. At the same time, the high seas were also a place for the constant battles between the fleets of the major seafaring nations. Thus, both civil and naval shipbuilding was and will always be of utmost importance for any country with a sea access. The product of this industry stays in demand at any time and under any circumstances - both during the periods of growth and the times of crises. The shipbuilding is subject to the same kind of difficulties as the economy as a whole, but due to the technological specifics of this industry it has some additional specific problems. This article deals with the comparative analysis of the recent and current state of the shipbuilding industries of Croatia and Russia. We tried to find out the problems that are similar for the shipbuilding industries of both countries, as well as their national particularities. The main difficulty for the comparative analysis was the fact that while the major part of the Croatian shipbuilding is civil, the Russian industry is predominantly naval. However, it does not preclude the existence of common problems, for the research of which the comparative analysis could be a useful tool