“A bare-breasted feminist activist bearing a threatening message on her body tried to attack the Russian Orthodox Church's leader Thursday, July 26, 2012, to protest alleged anti-Ukrainian policies by the church and the Kremlin”. – HeraldNet.com

Photo: A topless protester from the Ukrainian feminist group FEMEN is blocked by a security guard and a priest as she tries to throw herself at the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. (Photo by Associated Press)

Fireworks from Japan light up the sky at the start of the 6th Pyro musical competition Saturday, February 7, 2015 at the Mall of Asia shopping complex at suburban Pasay city south of Manila, Philippines. The fireworks competition, which runs for six consecutive weekends, features entries from 11 countries as host country the Philippines, Canada, United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Brazil, Portugal, China, Mexico, Italy, The Netherlands and Sweden, with Canada winning the championship last year. (Photo by Bullit Marquez/AP Photo)

Jennifer Lopez, left, is embraced by Pitbull at the end of her performance at the 42nd annual American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Sunday, November 23, 2014, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP Photo)

Lizzy Huggler, 20 ,wears blue ties on her legs on the third day of the Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware U.S., June 16, 2018. (Photo by Mark Makela/Reuters)

Ava Max poses with the Best Push award at the backstage during the 2019 MTV Europe Music Awards at the FIBES Conference and Exhibition Centre in Seville, Spain, November 3, 2019. (Photo by Jon Nazca/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.

“A topless women's rights activist hacked down a Christian cross in the Ukrainian capital Kiev with a chain saw on Friday in protest at the prosecution of the Russian feminist punk band, p*ssy Riot”. – Reuters. (Photo by FEMEN)