Jeison Rodriguez (L), 19, the living person with the largest feet in the world, poses for a picture with his older brother Wilmer, 24, outside their house in Maracay, Venezuela, October 14, 2015. Rodriguez, holds the Guinness World Record for the largest feet, with 40.1 cm (1 ft 3.79 in) on the right foot and 39.6 cm (1 ft 3.59 in) on the left foot. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

A Brazil fan waits for the start of the group A World Cup soccer match between Brazil and Croatia, the opening game of the tournament, in the Itaquerao Stadium in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thursday, June 12, 2014. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

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 staff member at the Rising Sun Anger Release Bar suits up in protective gear August 8, 2006 in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Bride Fan Huixiang (front R), a 25-year-old cancer patient, receives flowers from nurses on her bed before her wedding ceremony at a hospital in Zhengzhou, Henan province November 17, 2014. Fan was diagnosed with late stage adenocarcinoma, a type of cancerous tumor, at her thoracic vertebra this June. She and her 24-year-old husband Yu Haining held their wedding ceremony at the hospital on Monday after five years of relationship, local media reported. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

This picture taken on March 21, 2015 shows a couple kissing in front of blooming cherry blossoms in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province. The cherry blossoms, now in full bloom, attracted tens of thousands of visitors, local media reported. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

A Boeing F/A-18 takes off to perform during the Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, Britain, 12 July 2016. The Farnborough International Air Show runs from 11-17 July. (Photo by Hannah Mckay/EPA)

Balal, who killed Iranian youth Abdolah Hosseinzadeh in a street fight with a knife in 2007, is brought to the gallows during his execution ceremony in the northern city of Nowshahr on April 15, 2014. The mother of Abdolah Hosseinzadeh spared the life of the her son's convicted murderer, with an emotional slap in the face as he awaited execution prior to removing the noose around his neck. (Photo by Araash Khamooshi/AFP Photo/ISNA)