Participants run through coloured powder during the Colour Run race in Moscow, Russia on June 5, 2022. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Clutching a large paper bag and shading his eyes as he peers ahead, comic actor of the silent screen, Buster Keaton (1885–1966) arriving at Paris airport. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images). 1st August 1947

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill releases a white dove after a service marking the Holiday of Annunciation at the Kremlin in Moscow on April 7, 2023. In Christianity, Annunciation celebrates the revelation to the Virgin Mary that she would bear a son, Jesus. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP Photo)

A man poses as his acquaintance takes pictures on a street in the town of Vyborg, Russia on January 28, 2024. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)

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.

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.

North Korean women in colorful traditional dresses are surrounded by flower blossoms known as “Kimilsungia” as they wait to guide guests at a flower exhibition in Pyongyang, North Korea, April 14, 2014. The flowers, named after Kim Il Sung, are on display to celebrate the late leader's official birth date of April 15, 1912. (Photo by David Guttenfelder/AP Photo)

A Sotheby's employee holds a rare 52.82-carat white diamond ring at Sotheby's auction house on April 12, 2010 in London, England. Price: 7 million USD. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)