A boy wears a medieval helmet during a festival dedicated to the Day of Russia in St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, June 12, 2024. The Day of Russia is celebrated annually on 12 June. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A picture taken on October 17, 2014 in Vevey shows a giant fork designed by Switzerland's artist Jean-Pierre Zaugg to commemorate Nestle's Alimentarium Food Museum 10th anniversary. World's biggest food company, Swiss Nestle Group announced results sales down by 3.1% for the first nine months of 2014 to 66.2 billion Swiss francs (55.1 billion euros). (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/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.

In this photo taken Sunday, May 6, 2012, Denis Lutskevich, left, is detained by police during an opposition rally in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. The former naval cadet and first-year student, 21-year-old Lutskevich was attending his first protest when he was detained, and is still in prison Monday May 6, 2013, on the first year anniversary of the protest. (Photo by Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo)

People are reflected in mirrors as they walk in a busy shopping district in Tokyo, Japan, December 25, 2015. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Members of the Honour Guard and the central military band of the Mongolian armed forces perform during the International Military Music Festival “Spasskaya Tower” media preview in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, August 26, 2016. (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

A tourist train is decorated with Christmas lights in Bogotá, Colombia on December 10, 2017. (Photo by Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters)

Actors, clowns and mime artists celebrate “Humor Day” in St Petersburg on April 1, 2022. April 1 is also referred to as “April Fool’s Day” and is a time for playing pranks in the country. (Photo by Anatoly Maltsev/European Press Photo Agency)