Live octopus is a delicacy in South Korea but is a known choking hazard, since the still-moving suction cups can cause tentacle pieces to stick in a person's throat. A baby octopus is often consumed whole, while larger varieties are cut up and the still-wriggling tentacles eaten with a splash of sesame oil. Photo: A South Korean man and a woman eat a live octopus during an event to promote a local food festival in Seoul on September 12, 2013. (Photo by Jung Yeon-Je/AFP Photo)

Conservation staff members move the eight-years-old White Rhino Seha into a truck in Johannesburg, South Africa, 28 July 2017. Seha is the only survivor after five rhinos where poached on the same game farm. South Africa has the world's largest population of Rhinos in the world. (Photo by Kim Ludbrook/EPA/EFE)

Jason Arnold, project manager from solarcentury walks between lines of solar panels erected at Weighbridge, Wheal Jane, Baldhu on July 7, 2011 near Truro, England. A ceremony was held today to mark the connection of the 1.4kw solar farm, which on a 6.2 acre plot is the first in the South West and biggest in the UK to date, using 5,680 panels. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a simple suspension bridge crossing the Capilano River in the District of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The current bridge is 140 metres (460 ft) long and 70 metres (230 ft) above the river. It is part of a private facility, with an admission fee, and draws over 800,000 visitors a year.

A pedestrian battles against gale force winds in Adelaide Street West next to the promenade in Blackpool on December 28, 2011 in Blackpool, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

A soldier stands guard on the aircraft park of the Pyongyang Airport on April 3, 2011 in Pyongyang, North Korea. Pyongyang is the capital city of North Korea and the population is about 2,500,000.

U.S. soldiers wrestle with South Korean soldiers in a muddy ring during a joint ranger training exercise at a ranger camp near the demilitarised zone (DMZ) June 25 2003 in Paju, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

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.