Students, dressed in a whole array of fancy dress outfits, were pictured on a wild night out to kick off Freshers' Week in Leeds, England on September 21, 2019. Freshers' Week is a period before the start of an academic year at a university or tertiary institutions. During this period, students participate in a wide range of social activities. (Photo by N B (PRESS) LTD)

Vaccinators wear protective masks as they get their temperature checked, during an anti-polio campaign, in a low-income neighborhood as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Karachi, Pakistan on July 20, 2020. (Photo by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)

Normandie Amandine Petit (3rd R) celebrates after being elected Miss France 2021 in Puy du Fou, France on December 19, 2020. (Photo by Anthony Ghnassia/SIPA Press/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Caterine Ibarguen of Team Colombia competes in the Women's Triple Jump Qualification on day seven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on July 30, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Irish television personality, presenter and model Maura Higgins early February 2023 looked sensational as she stripped to a black mesh bodysuit. (Photo by Iulia David)

Kenya Wildlife Service rangers and capture team cool down a sedated elephant at Mwea National Park, east of the capital Nairobi, Kenya Monday, October 14, 2024. (Photo by Brian Inganga/AP Photo)

Robert The Bruce's army from The Clanranald Trust during a rehearsal for the Battle of Bannockburn re-enactment performance which will be staged at the Bannockburn Live Event in Bannockburn, the 700th anniversary of the battle, on June 27, 2014. (Photo by Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

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.