Dhofar Region, Oman. Much of Oman is desert, but the Arabian Sea coast in the Dhofar region represents a startling difference in climate. This coastal region catches the monsoon rains, or khareef, during the summer months. Drenching rains fall primarily on the mountainous ridge that separates the lush, fertile areas along the coast from the arid interior, recharging streams, waterfalls and springs that provide plentiful water supplies in the fertile lowlands for the remainder of the year. Image taken by Landsat 5 on April 2, 2005. (Photo by USGS/NASA)

A photo taken on August 29, 2014, shows Mount Tavurvur erupting in eastern Papua New Guinea, spewing rocks and ash into the air, forcing the evacuation of local communities and international flights to be re-routed. Mount Tavurvur, which destroyed the town of Rabaul when it erupted simultaneously with nearby Mount Vulcan in 1994, rumbled to life early in the morning on the tip of the remote island of New Britain. (Photo by Oliver Bluett/AFP Photo)

Shoppers wrestle over a television as they compete to purchase retail items on “Black Friday” at an Asda superstore in Wembley, north London November 28, 2014. Britain's high streets, malls and online sites were awash with discounts on Friday as more retailers than ever embraced U.S.-style “Black Friday” promotions, seeking to kickstart trading in the key Christmas period. In the United States the Friday following the Thanksgiving Day holiday is called Black Friday because spending usually surges and indicates the point at which American retailers begin to turn a profit for the year, or go “into the black”. (Photo by Luke MacGregor/Reuters)

A monkey is led by its trainer Qi Defang during training for a circus in Suzhou, Anhui province, November 29, 2014. Suzhou is known as the hometown of circus troupes in China and has more than 300 circus troupes. (Photo by William Hong/Reuters)

A pigeon rests on a wild iguana in a tree inside Seminario Park in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Thursday, April 3, 2014. Pigeons coexist with the wild iguanas at this park in the middle of the city surrounded by savannah. (Photo by Dolores Ochoa/AP Photo)

People take cover as riot police use pepper spray projectile during a protest as a second reading of a controversial national anthem law takes place in Hong Kong, China on May 27, 2020. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/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