Miss France Iris Mittenaere (R) and Miss Haiti Raquel Pelissier hold hands before Mittenaere is announced winner of the 65th Miss Universe beauty pageant at the Mall of Asia Arena, in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines January 30, 2017. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)

Colonel Roscoe Turner, the pilot of an American Boeing plane, showing his wife a model of the plane, at the airfield in Mildenhall. (Photo by R. Wesley/Fox Photos/Getty Images). 19th October 1934

A silicon rug in the form of Adolph Hitler on display during an exhibition by Israeli artist Boaz Arad, at the Center for Contemporary Art February 22, 2007 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Arad is an Israeli artist who is dealing with the Holocaust in a provocative way. He uses the Holocaust to discuss human evil and contemporary Israel, which he says is torn and crumbling. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

Elementary school children play outside their classrooms as mount Sinabung volcano spews thick volcanic ash in the background on February 10, 2017 in Karo, Indonesia. Mount Sinabung is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia and last erupted in May 2016, killing seven people. (Photo by Albert Damanik/Barcroft 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.

A woman (C) shops for an offering at the witch doctor's street in La Paz, July 31, 2015. According to Andean culture, the all the month of August is a time to give offerings to “Pachamama” to give thanks for their farms and health. The Aymaras use coca leaves, candies, animal fat, llama fetuses, some dried fruits, powdered minerals and alcohol during these rituals. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

The Sugar Plum Fairy, Katherine Free, left, dances with the dog, Pig, during the Birmingham's Ballet “Mutt-cracker”, a rendition of the famous ballet “The Nutcracker”, in Birmingham, Alabama, December 8, 2016. (Photo by Brynn Anderson/AP Photo)

Aenne Schwarz as a “daughter” and Anna Sophie Krenn on Thursday, September 8, 2017, during the photoprobe of “Paradies flood / Lost symphony / Part one of the klimatrilogie” in the Akademietheater in Vienna, Austria. The piece premiered on September 9, 2017. (Photo by Georg Hochmuth/APA)