Lorella Boccia attends Giffoni Film Festival blue carpet on July 23, 2014 in Giffoni Valle Piana, Italy. (Photo by Maria Laura Antonelli/AGF/SIPA Press)

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.

Pete McLeod of Canada flies in formation with Nigel Lamb of Great Britain, Martin Sonka of the Czech Republic and Kirby Chambliss of the United States during a Recon flight prior to the seventh stage of the Red Bull Air Race World Championship over the Hoover Dam on October 09, 2014 on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. (Photo by Joerg Mitter/Red Bull via Getty Images)

Miranda Kerr poses at the David Jones Spring/Summer fashion preview on Burke Street on August 10, 2011 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Lucas Dawson)

A boat commutes across the Mekong river in Phnom Penh on August 8, 2014. The Mekong is the world's twelth longest river running from the Tibetan Plateau through China's Yunnan province, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. (Photo by Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP Photo)

Lightning streaks across the sky as lava flows from a volcano in Eyjafjallajokul April 17, 2010. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

A man dressed as a bear and wearing a protective face mask amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) stands in front of a fountain in central Kyiv, Ukraine on August 11, 2020. (Photo by Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

Mariana Sousa, student of the Ballet Paraisopolis, warms up during a rehearse in Paraisopolis favela, outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil on August 27, 2020, amid the new coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The 200 ballet students of Paraisopolis, the second largest favela in Sao Paulo, restarted rehearsals after five months with a coreography about a police operation that put their community in mourning last year. (Photo by Nelson Almeida/AFP Photo)