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Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013<\/strong> The first things Mariya Bubnova recalls about the Sea of Azov are the small sailboats she and her friends rented to cruise its warm and barely salty waters.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was our tradition \u2013 to get together once a year,\u201d the dark-haired businesswoman, displaced person and mother of two tells Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n These days, Azov is no longer the place of wistful memories for Ukrainians like her. Russia seized it all after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and hundreds of thousands of people fled.<\/p>\n Bubnova grew up in Mariupol, a southeastern city of almost half a million people and the largest port on Azov. The world\u2019s shallowest sea is the size of Switzerland and was divided between Ukraine and Russia after the 1991 Soviet collapse.<\/p>\n Back then, spas and resorts coexisted there with two mammoth steel plants that churned out 40 percent of Ukraine\u2019s steel and polluted the sea breeze.<\/p>\n Bypassing fishing flotillas and jam-packed beaches, dozens of freighters shipped millions of tonnes of steel slabs along with wheat, vegetable oils and coal to the Black Sea and farther to the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n Almost 1,500km (932 miles) of Azov\u2019s Ukrainian shoreline was a top budget destination for families with small children who could safely frolic in the knee-deep water with almost no waves.<\/p>\n Grown-ups flocked to spas offering curative dirt and thermal waters to treat arthritis, skin conditions and allergies.<\/p>\n \u201cSince the [Russian] tsars, people came to Azov because it\u2019s curative,\u201d Bubnova says.<\/p>\n