An Egyptian Coptic Christian women holds onto a pew during the celebration of Christmas Nativity Liturgy, the start of Christmas, at the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. George on January 6, 2012 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Sister Rebecca Leis pours low-gluten alter bread batter into a machine that bakes the thin bread at the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration monastery in Clyde, Missouri, December 18, 2014. The Sisters have made communion wafers since 1910 and began making a low-gluten version in 2003 and have gone from 143 customers in 2004 to more than 11,000 customers from around the world. (Photo by Dave Kaup/Reuters)

A boy dressed as the Star Wars character Darth Vader attends a Star Wars themed church service, at the Zion Church in Berlin, Sunday, December 20, 2015. About 500 people, some carrying light saber props or wearing Darth Vader masks, attended the service, more than twice as many as usual on a Sunday. (Photo by Markus Schreiber/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.

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 woman holds her dog as it is blessed by a priest in Benalmadena, near Malaga, Spain, January 17, 2016. Hundreds of pet owners bring their animals to be blessed every year on the day of San Anton, Spain's patron saint of animals. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)

A police officer walks along a street of the burning village of Smolenka near Chita on Monday, April 13, 2015. Russian authorities say out-of-control agricultural fires have killed at least 15 people, injured hundreds more and destroyed or damaged more than 1,000 homes in Siberia. The fires were started by farmers burning the grass in their fields, but spread quickly because of strong winds. (Photo by Evgeny Yepanchintsev/AP Photo)

The Rio dry cargo ship that has ran aground during a storm in December 2018 in Kabardinka, Krasnodar Territory, Russia on August 11, 2020. The vessel has become a tourist attraction of the region. (Photo by Alexander Ryumin/TASS)