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

Men are held by Iraqi national security agents, to be interrogated at a checkpoint, as oil fields burn in Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq, Saturday, November 5, 2016. Islamic State fighters launch counterattacks in the thin strip of territory Iraqi special forces have recaptured in eastern Mosul, highlighting the challenges ahead as the battle moves into more densely populated neighborhoods where coalition air power must be used more selectively. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

Francisco da Silva Vale, 61, cools off fish with ice produced on solar-powered ice machines at Vila Nova do Amana community in the Sustainable Development Reserve, in Amazonas state, Brazil, September 23, 2015. Three solar-powered machines, are producing about ninety kilos of ice per day, in a region with poor access to electric energy, which used to be produced only with diesel oil, in the Amazon rain forest. (Photo by Bruno Kelly/Reuters)

Hurricanes player Xavier Numia and Black Ferns player Marcelle Parkes train in isolation at Polo Ground Park due to the coronavirus lockdown on May 06, 2020 in Wellington, New Zealand. New Zealand has been in lockdown since Thursday 26 March following tough restrictions imposed by the government to stop the spread of COVID-19 across the country. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

A Comic Con attendee poses during the 2014 New York Comic Con at Jacob Javitz Center on October 9, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images)

A man dressed as Santa Claus poses during a base flying event in downtown in Berlin December 6, 2014. Participants of the event hosted by entertainment agency Jochen Schweizer flew down 98 metres (322 ft.) from atop the hotel in the German capital. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

A soldier poses with a Hythe Mk III Gun Camera during training activities at Ellington Field, Houston, Texas in April of 1918. The Mk III, built to match the size, handling, and weight of a Lewis Gun, was used to train aerial gunners, recording a photograph when the trigger was pulled, for later review, when an instructor could coach trainees on better aiming strategies. (Photo by Harry Kidd/WWI Army Signal Corps Photograph Collection via The Atlantic)