A baby Chimpanzee plays in its enclosure at Taronga Zoo July 14, 2006 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images)

Maria Sharapova of Russia arrives at the 2012 Australian open Players Party at Crown Towers on January 15, 2012 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Prezioso/Getty Images)

A surfer heads out at Coldingham Bay an inlet in the North Sea on February 15, 2012 in Coldingham, Scotland. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

Yokozuna-ranked sumo wrestler Hakuho of Mongolia (top) throws Goeido of Japan during their bout on the final day of the 15-day Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament in Fukuoka on November 26, 2017. Mongolian grand champion Hakuho won the latest sumo tournament on November 25 as Japan's national sport continued to draw media attention after another top wrestler faced a police probe into an alleged assault. He won the 15-day tournament at 13-1 by Saturday with one day remaining as his closest contenders were all defeated at 11-3 before his bout on the day. (Photo by AFP Photo/JIJI Press)

A Spanish recortador jumps over a bull during a show in Cali December 21, 2014. (Photo by Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters)

American model Kendall Jenner in the second decade of May 2024 hits the steam room for FWRD. (Photo by Kendall Jenner/Instagram)

These stunning images reveal the remains of a more than century-old sunken ship that has been preserved beneath freezing Lake Superior. The ship looks almost exactly the same as it did the day it sunk beneath waves all those years ago. At 60 meters long (approximately 198 feet), the «Gunilda» sunk after it struck some rocks and was not saved. Now, these stunning images have been captured 107 years after the sinking when a small group of divers revisited the vessel. (Photo by Becky Kagan Schott/Caters News Agency)

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.