evidence: Barely 30 families live on the narrow sliver of sand known as Tuzla Island, fewer when the weather gets bad, or the fishing gets good. The only other landmarks on the half-mile-wide, 4-mile-long sand spit between Russia and Ukraine are two aging, Soviet-era vacation spas, empty except for occasional visits by port workers from the mainland. The issue of who owns Tuzla Island has been a matter of extreme inconsequence for as long as anyone can remember. When Ukraine and Russia were adjoining republics in the Soviet Union, it hardly mattered. When Ukraine declared independence more than a decade ago, it faced no serious argument from Russia when it penciled its national boundary around Tuzla and began administering the narrow shipping strait nearby that links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov. [...] If almost no one had previously heard of Tuzla, that hardly stopped them from drawing a line in its sand. When a radio station in Moscow asked its listeners which was more important, neighborly relations with Ukraine or Tuzla Island, 82% of the 3,000 people who called in answered: "Tuzla."