A tornado builds and travels southwest causing damage near Dean Rd. and 82nd Avenue in Hutchinson, Kan. on Monday, July 13, 2015. (Photo by Sandra J. Milburn/The Hutchinson News via AP Photo)

A Maori warrior prepares to challenge Prince Charles during his welcome to Takanhanga Marae in Kaikoura, New Zealand November 23, 2019. (Photo by Tracey Nearmy/Reuters)

A woman rides a donkey during a donkey race in Roum village, Jizeen countryside, southern Lebanon, August 9, 2015. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Reuters)

Children play near an apartment complex on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar on July 29, 2019. (Photo by Sai Aung Main/AFP Photo)

Fireworks light up the sky around the White House, Wednesday night, January 20, 2021, in Washington, as part of the festivities after President Joe Biden was inaugurated today. (Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP 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.

This photo provided by the North Korean government shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, is surrounded by performers during a celebration marking the nation's 74th anniversary in Pyongyang, North Korea, on September 8, 2022. (Photo by Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Photo)

A man throws water on a girl playing in a pool, during a hot weather, amid concerns over the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Sidon, southern Lebanon on May 21, 2020. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Reuters)