An Indonesian devotee cleans and purifies a holy statue of the Gods with tea, roses and cendana water at Suka Loka Tri Dharma Temple on January 26, 2022 in Surabaya, Indonesia. Countries around Southeast Asia are set to welcome a lively Chinese New Year, despite implementing strict health protocols as Chinese populations curtail celebrations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first day of the Lunar New Year, on February 1, will usher in the Year of the Tiger. (Photo by Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images)

A woman releases birds as people celebrate the start of the Lunar New Year in Surabaya on February 1, 2022, which ushers in the Year of the Tiger. (Photo by Juni Kriswanto/AFP Photo)

A married Hindu woman performs rituals around a banyan tree at Vat Savitri festival in Ahmedabad, India, Tuesday, June 14, 2022. Vat Savitri is celebrated on a full moon day where women pray for the longevity of their husbands. (Photo by Ajit Solanki/AP Photo)

A man participates in the Pacu Jawi, a traditional bull race, at Nagari Labuah, in Tanah Datar of West Sumatra, Indonesia, on April 13, 2024. (Photo by Yorri Farli/Xinhua News Agency/Alamy Live News)

A Mai-Mai rebel soldier shows off his guns at a checkpoint near the Mugunga refugee camp in Zaire; 1996. (Photo by Carol Guzy/The Washington Post)

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.

English journalist and newsreader Lucy Watson attends the “Charlie's Angels” UK Premiere at The Curzon Mayfair on November 20, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

Cosplayer Leah Panos as Snow White donates blood at San Diego Blood Bank on July 25, 2020 in San Diego, California. With the cancellation of 2020 Comic-Con International due to the coronavirus pandemic, the San Diego Blood Bank moved their 44th Annual Comic-Con's Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive to encompass all of their locations and mobile units. (Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images)