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.

An undercover police officer, who had been marching with anti-police demonstrators, aims his gun at protesters after some in the crowd attacked him and his partner in Oakland, California December 10, 2014. Police said more than 100 demonstrators marched in Berkeley, California, which has a history of social activism. Under cloudy skies, turnout was smaller than earlier in the week, when demonstrators in the area threw rocks at police and shut down a major freeway. (Photo by Noah Berger/Reuters)

Chinese woman Zhang Jing, known as the “Ugly Girl” smiles after doctors removed the stitches from her fourth session of cosmetic surgery at a hospital on March 23, 2005 in Shanghai, China. Zhang Jing, 26 years old, from Tianjin Municipality, was forced to leave school because her classmates sneered at her appearance during her teenage years. After leaving junior high school, Zhang found herself still unacceptable by society, she struggled to look for a job, but was turned down by one thousand job applications in ten years. Zhang's story was widely reported by the media in 2003, this helped her find a job and get three chances of free plastic surgery. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

“A cuddle party or cuddle puddle is an event designed with the intention of allowing people to experience non-sexual group physical intimacy through cuddling. Cuddle parties are described by organizers as “workshop/social-events” that gives adults an opportunity to “give and receive welcomed affectionate touch in a no-expectation, friendly setting, according to your needs, desires, interests, and boundaries”. Cuddle parties are described as non-sexual events but kissing may occur at some parties”. – Wikipedia

Photo: People cuddle during an a “Cuddle Party” October 16, 2004 in New York City. Started by Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski, cuddle parties are events for adults to get together and explore affectionate touch and communication without it becoming sexualized. At the parties, strangers spend time introducing themselves and setting boundaries before lying down to cuddle. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A couple kisses in a central Barcelona street during the first night without the state of alarm, on 9 May, 2021 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The state of alarm that the Government decreed for the second time six months ago ended at 00.00 hours this Sunday, May 9. In Catalonia this has led to the fall of the curfew and the perimeter confinement of the Community. (Photo By Lorena Sopena via Getty Images)

A soldier supporting anti-government opposition groups carries a rocket-propelled grenade launcher on a street in the Fagah area of Mogadishu, Somalia Sunday, April 25, 2021. Gunfire was exchanged Sunday between government forces loyal to President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who signed into law on April 14 a two year extension of his mandate and that of his government, and other sections of the military opposed to the move and sympathetic to former presidents Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. (Photo by Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP Photo)

A colorful drawing is seen on a wall in Baghdad, Iraq on October 24, 2021. A group of volunteer painters tries to give hope and joy to the Iraqi residents by painting colorful murals on the walls of the houses and streets of the city, tired of violance. Seve-member group named “Butterfly Effect” is busy in drawing paintings to depict life in Baghdad and its cultural heritage on the buildings (Photo by Murtadha Al-Sudani/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Two Iranian women walk past a mural depicting a flying dove at a street in Tehran, Iran, 01 November 2021. The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Islamic Republic is ready to return to nuclear talks in Vienna before the end of November. Iran also proposed to the US administration to lift the sanctions and to start negotiations. Iran is facing an economic crisis under US heavy sanctions following the United States' withdrawal from a nuclear deal in 2018. (Photo by Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/EFE)