Bella Hadid, leads other models, as they wear creations as part of the Fendi Fall/Winter 2022-2023 fashion collection, as guests record the show on their cell phones during the Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, February 23, 2022. (Photo by Antonio Calanni/AP Photo)

Sparkler fireworks are created by Palestinian children in the al-Zaytoun district on the east of Gaza City on March 28, 2023 during Ramadan. The fireworks, which are made with steel wire wool, are part of the celebrations in the Palestinian enclave during the Muslim holy month. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/IMAGESLIVE via ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Hindu holy men display their yoga skills before media on International Day of Yoga at the Kamakhya temple in Guwahati, Assam, India, Wednesday, June 21, 2023. The holy men from different parts of this northeastern state arrived at the temple to attend the Ambubachi festival that starts on Thursday. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

This handout photo taken on August 31, 2023 and provided by the South Korean Defence Ministry shows South Korean soldiers participating in an air assault drill at a training field in Jangseong, as part of the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military drills between South Korea and the United States. (Photo by Handout/South Korean Defence Ministry/AFP Photo)

A female soldier takes part in a training for women at the Tolemaida Military Air Base in Tolemaida, Colombia, on May 16, 2023. The last time the Colombian Army enlisted women in their ranks was in 1993. Now, 30 years on, more than 1,200 women voluntarily joined the military service in the country. (Photo by Raúl Arboleda/AFP 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.

How sure are you of your geographical knowledge? Buzzfeed recently put Americans’ geographical knowledge to the test with a survey in which participants had to write in countries’ names on a blank European political map. Unfortunately, they didn’t fare too well, but some of their responses are hilarious (or hilariously mis-informed). But don’t be so quick to judge Americans – when Buzzfeed posted a similar survey testing Brits’ knowledge of the 50 United States, they also came up short. On the one hand, knowing a country’s states is different from knowing independent countries, but on the other, some U.S. states are larger than some European nations, and some U.S. states have larger economies than some European nations.

A tourist catches snowflakes on her tongue during snow fall in Times Square, Midtown, New York, on January 3, 2013. A major snowstorm producing blizzard-like conditions hammered the northeastern United States on Friday, causing more than 1,000 U.S. flight delays and cancellations, paralyzing road travel, and closing schools and government offices. (Photo by Darren Ornitz/Reuters)