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 girl plays in a water-jets fountain in Moscow, Russia, 23 June 2021. The temperature exceeded 36 degrees Celsius in Moscow. The weather in Moscow broke the temperature record high of the day, held since 1948, when meteorologists recorded +33.6. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/EFE)

Cosplayer Leah Panos as Snow White donates blood at San Diego Blood Bank on July 25, 2020 in San Diego, California. With the cancellation of 2020 Comic-Con International due to the coronavirus pandemic, the San Diego Blood Bank moved their 44th Annual Comic-Con's Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive to encompass all of their locations and mobile units. (Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images)

English journalist and newsreader Lucy Watson attends the “Charlie's Angels” UK Premiere at The Curzon Mayfair on November 20, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

People look out at the city among 30,375 square feet of mirrors at SUMMIT One Vanderbilt in New York on May 22, 2024. The Parade of Ships is seen from SUMMIT One Vanderbilt in NYC as part of the Fleet Week Celebration events. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP Photo)

Nicole Kidman arrives for the world premiere of "Holland" at the Paramount Theatre during the South by Southwest Conference and Festival on Sunday, March 9, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP Photo)

A woman pulls a wooden craft carrying her family in flood water after attending a wedding ceremony in Cilacap, Central Java, Indonesia, March 16, 2022. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

An Indian villager wearing a face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus sells his ware at market in Jammu, India, Friday, October 9, 2020. (Photo by Channi Anand/AP Photo)