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.

An Israeli spectator watches a giant T-Rex balloon during the Purim parade festival in Petah Tikva, Israel, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Jewish holiday of Purim commemorates the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther. (Photo by Oded Balilty/AP Photo)

“Eid ul-Fitr, Eid al-Fitr, Id-ul-Fitr, or Id al-Fitr, often abbreviated to Eid, is a Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting (sawm). Eid is an Arabic word meaning “festivity”, while Fiṭr means “breaking (the fast)”. The holiday celebrates the conclusion of the twenty nine or thirty days of dawn-to-sunset fasting during the entire month of Ramadan. The first day of Eid, therefore, falls on the first day of the month Shawwal”. – Wikipedia

A boy wearing a dress-up costume to mark the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim, which is a celebration of the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, walks on a street in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem on February 24, 2021. (Photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters)

A child is seen during celebrations of Reindeer Breeder Day, the main holiday of indigenous peoples of the Russian Extreme North, in the village of Nosok on Taymyr Peninsula in north-central Siberia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Russia on April 17, 2021. (Photo by Alexander Ryumin/TASS)

English television personality from Newcastle, known for being a cast member in the MTV reality series “Geordie Shore”, Chloe Ferry, 25, soaked up the sun in a thong latex bikini during her holiday in Portugal on May 28, 2021. (Photo by Backgrid USA)

Bicycle rickshaw drivers chat as they wait for customers near the Drum Tower in a traditional neighbourhood on September 30, 2021 in Beijing, China. China will mark National Day and the Golden Week holiday from October 1st. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

An Afghan boy looks through the scope of a toy gun, as other children ride on swings during the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in Kabul, Afghanistan June 25, 2017. (Photo by Omar Sobhani/Reuters)