Repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs), which arise in DNA spontaneously or under the influence of external factors, is critical for cell survival. The evolutionarily conserved mechanism of error-free recombinational repair plays a major role in maintaining the genome integrity and has a number of similarities between lower eukaryotes and vertebrates. The review considers the currently available data on the mechanism of recombinational DSB repair in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe and its differences from the corresponding mechanisms of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and higher eukaryotes.