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.

The Euro sculpture is partially reflected in a puddle on a cobblestone pavement in front of the headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt on Jan. 21. (Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

People ride on a motorcycle in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

A plane belonging to U.S. missionary group Agape Flights burns after it was set on fire during protests demanding that the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry do more to address gang violence including constant kidnappings, in Les Cayes, Haiti on March 29, 2022. (Photo by Duples Plymouth/Reuters)

Queen Ashi Jetsun Pema, 21, walks out after the marriage ceremony is completed on October 13, 2011 in Punakha, Bhutan. The Dzong is the same venue that hosted the King's historic coronation ceremony in 2008. The Oxford-educated king is popular in the country and the ceremony will be followed by celebration in the capital and countryside. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Dancers perform at a Carnival parade in Les Cayes, Haiti, Tuesday, February 28, 2017. Haiti's three-day Carnival festivities have brought rum-fueled parties, imaginative costumes and high-energy dance music to a southern city that's still recovering from last year's punishing Hurricane Matthew. (Photo by Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo)

Peru, Iquitos. Restaurant in Bellavista, an area by the Amazon on April 2005. (Photo by Jean-Claude Coutausse)

“Zeybeks”. That's Dance, Sunward and Zeybeks. (Photo by Hasan Baglar/2014 Sony World Photography Awards)