Images of Europes most spooky abandoned hospitals show just how frightening these once sparkling medical facilities can be. The haunting shots show the beds patients would have recovered on as well as the tables and instruments that would have been used during grim operations. Peeling, flaking paint and crumbling walls are prevalent in some of the hospitals while others look almost untouched by time. The spooky pictures were taken by Austrian photographer Stefan Baumann (35) from Vienna as he travelled across Europe. (Photo by Stefan Baumann/Caters News)

In this April 16, 2019 photo, people wait to be given empty water containers and water purification pills during the first aid shipment from the Red Cross in Caracas, Venezuela. In late March, the Red Cross federation announced it would soon begin delivering assistance to an estimated 650,000 people and vowed that it would not accept interference from either side of the polarized country. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

A woman shouting into a megaphone during a “Kill the Bill” protest in Manchester City Centre on April 3, 2021 in Manchester, United Kingdom. Protests around the United Kingdom have been held in opposition to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. The proposed legislation, which would apply to England and Wales, covers a wide range of issues and would broaden the police's authority for regulating protests. (Photo by Mercury Press and Media)

Shamila, 15, from an internally displaced family, adjusts her wedding dress in an old mud house yard, on her wedding day, on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, May 19, 2023. “I have no choice. If I don’t accept, my family will be hurt”, she says. Due to poverty and debt, her father had to marry her to a boy at a young age. Her father said that if I did not do this, I might have to give my daughter to someone that I owe. Now, with the money I received from the boy's family, I can pay my debt and treat my son. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

A man dressed up as the devil jumps over babies lying on a mattress in the street during “El Colacho”, the “baby jumping festival” in the village of Castrillo de Murcia, near Burgos on June 18, 2017. Baby jumping (El Colacho) is a traditional Spanish practice dating back to 1620 that takes place annually to celebrate the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi. During the act – known as El Salto del Colacho (the devil's jump) or simply El Colacho – men dressed as the Devil jump over babies born in the last twelve months of the year who lie on mattresses in the street. (Photo by Cesar Manso/AFP Photo)

“Hi! I'm Joel, I live in a valley in British Columbia's Rocky Mountains, as close to the forest as I could possibly be! I love to run, bike, jump, eat and create and I hope that you enjoy my work as much as I enjoy creating it!” – Joel Robison. (Photo by: Joel Robison; Source: Flickr)

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.