A museum employee views “Details of Renaissance Paintings (Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482)” by Andy Warhol at the Victoria and Albert museum in London, Britain, March 2, 2016. The piece forms part of “Botticelli Reimagined”, an exhibition exploring the ways artists have responded to the artistic legacy of the fifteenth century artist Sandro Botticelli, and including over fifty artworks by Botticelli himself. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

Kim and Khloe Kardashian turned up the heat on the sandy shores of Turks and Caicos on April 6, 2024. The glamorous sisters were spotted soaking up the sun in their stunning snake skin bikinis while enjoying quality beach time. Though their kids weren't pictured, the Kardashian clan was making the most of their paradise getaway while Kim wore her cowboy hat in the water. Pictured: American media personality Kim Kardashian. (Photo by Backgrid USA)

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.

Demonstrators react during a rally in support of legal and safe abortion and to mark the International Safe Abortion Day in Bogota, Colombia on September 28, 2021. (Photo by Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters)

Students run past a burning barricade set up by protesters demanding the release of kidnapped people, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, November 25, 2021. The country is experiencing a rise in gang-related kidnappings, many demanding ransom, with the U.S. State Department issuing a warning in Aug. about the risk of kidnapping in Caribbean country. (Photo by Joseph Odelyn/AP Photo)

Soviet cosmonaut and the first man to travel in space, Yury Alekseyvich Gagarin (1934–1968) arriving in London for a Russian trade fair. (Photo by Douglas Miller/Getty Images)

Men stage an attack during a training session for the Olympic Torch Security Team who will be protecting the torch bearers and Olympic flame during the torch relay's progress through the UK, at the Metropolitan Police Training School on March 9, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Lewis Whyld – WPA Pool /Getty Images)

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