Brazilian fashion modell Gisele Bundchen on March 9, 2023 teases for Brazilian footwear brand Arezzo's Winter 2023 campaign. The newly-divorced 42-year-old transforms into a blonde bombshell in these striking images to promote the sassy collection by creative director Giovanni Bianco. (Photo by Arezzo/The Mega Agency)

Women pray at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi in the early hours of April 6, 2024, on Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Destiny), one of the holiest nights during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. (Photo by Ryan Lim/AFP Photo)

Italian illusionist Arturo Brachetti perfoms in the mirrored mazes of Camera Obscura on August 06, 2024 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His show SOLO which is running at Pleasance’s EICC sees over fifty characters come to life through illusions, transformations and some magic tricks. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

The picture dated September 19. 2024 shows a female Kingfisher feeding on small fish near Lancaster, UK. Kingfishers need to eat regularly and eat their own bodyweight in food each day. They primarily eat fish, such as minnows, and when they spot a fish they dive headfirst into the water and seize it with their sharp bills. (Photo by Brendan McGee/Bav Media)

A man reacts inside the projection mapping and interactive installation known as “Illusion Road” at the multi-dimensional media art gallery Immersify KL in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 04 March 2025. Immersify KL attracts visitors with interactive installations, high-definition visuals, and 3D spatial sound, creating breathtaking zones, including the country's first 360-degree, 12-meter-high projection space inside a 30,000-square-foot area with 11 sections of different immersive zones. (Photo by Fazry Ismail/EPA)

Behind the scenes at Rock it Out, a circus show fusing live music and death-defying stunts in West Thurrock, Essex on April 10, 2025. They will attempt a British first: a double somersault on a rotating wheel. (Photo by Jeff Moore)

A ballerina puts makeup on before practising for the revival of the classical ballet “Chopiniana”, the first since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, in the underground area of the National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre amid ongoing attacks, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on April 27, 2025. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.