Iraqi army soldiers fire mortars against the Islamic State militants, at Shahrazad village 2 miles (3 kilometers) east of Mosul, Iraq, Monday, November 14, 2016. A suicide bombing in Iraq targeted the Shiite sacred city of Karbala on Monday, killing at least six civilians, the latest attempt by the Islamic State group to distract from the government forces' offensive on the IS-held northern city of Mosul. (Photo by Hussein Malla/AP Photo)

Nepalese students of Himalayan agriculture college play in mud water in a paddy field to celebrate the National Paddy Day in Badegaun village, Lalitpur, Nepal, 29 June 2016. More than 100 students and teachers of Himalayan agriculture college participated in the National paddy day by planting rice and playing in mud water as Nepal is celebrating National Paddy Day with various event. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA)

A victim under a blanket lays dead outside the Bataclan theater in Paris, Friday November 13, 2015. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

NYC no pants subway ride. Thousands of straphangers took their pants off for the 15th annual "No Pants Subway Ride" hosted by Improv Everywhere. People gathered at seven meeting points throughout the five boroughs at 3PM. All participants met up at Union Square around 5PM to and had a pant-less celebration and the afterparty at Webster Hall. (Photo by Paul Martinka/The New York Post)

The ruins of a castle stand above the town of Rocca Calascio, close to Santo Stefano di Sessanio in the province of L'Aquila in Abruzzo, inside the national park of the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga, Italy, September 7, 2016. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

A Tibetan Buddhist nun spins a prayer wheel in sub zero temperatures at a Buddhist laymen lodge where thousands of people gather for daily chanting session during the Utmost Bliss Dharma Assembly, the last of the four Dharma assemblies at Larung Wuming Buddhist Institute in remote Sertar county, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, China November 1, 2015. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/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.

A Russian prisoner eating bread. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Finland, circa 1940