Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) and George R. R. Martin attend the “Game Of Thrones” Season 8 NY Premiere on April 3, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO)

Irish actress Jessie Buckley in Miu Miu attends the EE British Academy Film Awards 2020 at Royal Albert Hall on February 02, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Jamie Simonds/Bafta/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

French television personality Iris Mittenaere poses on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the film “Alpha” in competition at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, on May 19, 202. (Photo by Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters)

A girl plays in a water-jets fountain in Moscow, Russia, 23 June 2021. The temperature exceeded 36 degrees Celsius in Moscow. The weather in Moscow broke the temperature record high of the day, held since 1948, when meteorologists recorded +33.6. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/EFE)

People look out at the city among 30,375 square feet of mirrors at SUMMIT One Vanderbilt in New York on May 22, 2024. The Parade of Ships is seen from SUMMIT One Vanderbilt in NYC as part of the Fleet Week Celebration events. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP Photo)

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.

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)

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)