An Army Sikorsky VH-34s Choctaw helicopter once used to transport President Dwight D. Eisenhower sits in a field at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group boneyard Thursday, May 14, 2015 at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz. President Eisenhower became the first chief executive to be transported by helicopter. Presidents Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy were transported in VH-34 helicopters and VH-34's served as “Army One” from 1958 through 1963. (Photo by Matt York/AP Photo)

Romanian soldiers take part in a joint military exercise with NATO members, called “Agile Spirit 2015” at the Vaziani military base outside Tbilisi, Georgia, July 21, 2015. Georgian soldiers along with U.S. marines and platoon-size units from Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania are taking part in the exercises at the Vaziani military base outside Tbilisi. (Photo by David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters)

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 modern Russia there are no free elections, therefore the political elite is almost constant.

Photo: Valentina Matvienko, Mayor of St. Petersburg, attends the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on June 17, 2011 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Global business leaders have gathered in Russia for the three-day conference. (Photo by Alexander Aleshkin/Epsilon/Getty Images)

A rescue worker holds an injured boy after what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in Idlib city, Syria December 20, 2015. (Photo by Ammar Abdullah/Reuters)

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.

“Aquarium or Akvarium (Russian: Аквариум) is a Russian rock group, formed in Leningrad in 1972 by Boris Grebenshchikov (Борис Гребенщиков), then a student of Applied Mathematics at Leningrad State University, and Anatoly (George) Gunitsky, then a playwright and absurdist poet”. – Wikipedia

Flashmob: Water Battle on All-Russian Exhibition Center in Moscow, Russia, on August 5, 2012. (Photo by Lilja Dal)