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 Friday, March 28, 2014 photo, singers of the Moranbong Band, Jong Su Hyang, foreground, and Pak Mi Kyong, left perform on their stage in Pyongyang, North Korea. Step aside, Sea of Blood Opera. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's favorite guitar-slinging, miniskirt-sporting girl group, the Moranbong Band, is back. And these ladies know how to shimmy. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)

“MSC Fabiola is a container ship owned by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the largest such vessel ever to dock in North America. In March 2012 the ship shifted from its initial Asia-to-Europe service to begin trans-Pacific service. On March 19, 2012, Fabiola docked at the Port of Long Beach, breaking earlier records for the largest container ship at a US port, and at any North American port”. – Wikipedia

Photo: The container ship MSC Fabiola (R) is seen docked at the Port of Oakland on March 22, 2012, in Oakland, California. The MSC Fabiola is the largest container ship ever to dock at any seaport in North America with an overall length of nearly one quarter mile long. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A boy tumbles as he plays soccer on the streets of the Khayelitsha township in Cape Town, December 3, 2009. (Photo by Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

Labourers unload gravel from a boat docked in Dala township, opposite Yangon city, Myanmar, November 12, 2015. (Photo by Olivia Harris/Reuters)

A flash of lightning lights up a raincloud hovering over a township in Dharmsala, India, Sunday, April 19, 2020. (Photo by Ashwini Bhatia/AP Photo)

“Sleeveface is an internet phenomenon wherein one or more persons obscure or augment body parts with record sleeve(s), causing an illusion. Sleeveface has become popular on social networking sites”. – Wikipedia

Photo: “Doggy Style” (Photo by Samuel and Marco van Bergen via SleeveFace.com)

A girl and boy carry a basket of fish in Kyaukpyu township, Rakhine state, Myanmar October 6, 2015. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)