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 poses next to a giant mining truck at the entrance of the Dakar Rally camp in Calama, Chile. The truck operates in copper mines near the city. (Photo by Victor R. Caivano/Associated Press)

An E.T. doll is seen while construction workers prepare to dig into a landfill in Alamogordo, N.M., Saturday, April 26, 2014. Producers of a documentary are digging in the landfill in search of millions of cartridges of the Atari “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” game that has been called the worst game in the history of videogaming. A New York Times article from 1983 reported that Atari cartridges of “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” were dumped in the landfill in Alamogordo. (Photo by Juan Carlos Llorca/AP Photo)

An Australian athlete does a handstand as she arrives with her teammates during the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games 2014 in Glasgow, Scotland, Wednesday July 23, 2014. (Photo by Frank Augstein/AP Photo)

A demonstrator is detained during May Day rallies in Santiago May 1, 2013. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

An injured protestor is led away during clashes with police near Tahrir Square on November 23, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. Thousands of Egyptians are continuing to occupy Tahrir Square after four days of clashes with security forces despite a promise from military leaders to bring forward Presidential elections. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)