Participants take part in a parade in traditional attire to celebrate Tamu Lhosar, a New Year festival of the Gurung community in Kathmandu, Nepal on December 30, 2024. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Boozed-out revellers donned fancy dress as they welcomed in the Bank Holiday at the Otley Run. Hundreds swarmed Leeds, UK on Saturday, March 30, 2024, as the infamous tipple mission got underway beneath blue skies and sunshine. (Photo by NB Press LTD)

New lovebirds boxer Robin Deakin – once known as “Britain's Worst Boxer” – and former UK “Big Brother” star Lisa Appleton go to the boxing gym in London, United Kingdom on September 28, 2016. The pair were seen holding hands in the street on arrival, and they then slogged it out in the ring and fooled about in Robin's gym. (Photo by FameFlynet UK)

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.

“These dolly birds are showing off the latest haute COO-ture in a stunning set of images that portray everyday pigeons as fashion models. The series, titled “Darwin’s Pigeons”, was snapped by British photographer Richard Bailey, who was looking to capture the birds’ photogenic side as a tribute to the Father of Evolution himself, who it is believed was fascinated by the birds”. – Caters News. Photo: Old Dutch Capucine. Darwin’s Pigeons series. (Photo by Photo by Richard Bailey/Caters News)

“Sky burial or ritual dissection was once a common funerary practice in Tibet wherein a human corpse is cut in specific locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements or the mahabhuta and animals – especially to birds of prey. The location of the sky burial preparation and place of execution are understood in the Vajrayana traditions as charnel grounds. In Tibet the practice is known as jhator, which literally means, «giving alms to the birds»”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A burial master chops bones of a body to feed vultures during a celestial burial ceremony on April 19, 2006 in Dari County of Guoluo Prefecture, Qinghai Province, northwest China. Celestial burial is a traditional funeral of Tibetan people, which began in the 7th century. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Women wearing traditional hats, known as a non la, sell fruits in Hoi An, Vietnam April 4, 2016. The non la hats are made of readily available materials such as palm leaves, tree bark and bamboo and are visible everywhere in the city, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Hoi An's history as a busy trading port is evident throughout its architecture, a mix of eras and styles, with traditional wooden Vietnamese houses, Chinese temples and French colonial buildings. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

French artist Gino rides the “Celestial Cyclo” tricycle built by him in Le Marais neighbourhood in Paris, France, August 15, 2015. (Photo by Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)