American actress Monica Barbaro at the Willy Chavarria Met Gala after party co-hosted with Wayman and Micah held at the Mark Hotel on May 05, 2025 in New York, New York. (Photo by Lexie Moreland/WWD via Getty Images)

Rohingya refugee children pictured in a camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 19, 2017. With a mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims sparking accusations of ethnic cleansing from the United Nations and others, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday said her country does not fear international scrutiny and invited diplomats to see some areas for themselves. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/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.

A Selkirk Rex cat is one of more than 400 breeds of cats being presented at the World Cat Federation two-day show in Dortmund, Germany, on April 21, 2013. (Photo by Frank Augstein/Associated Press)

In this Wednesday, January 23, 2019, an anti-government protester covers her face with a Venezuelan flag, and uses toothpaste around her eyes to help lessen the effect of tear gas, during clashes with security forces after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela. The head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress declared himself interim president at the rally, until new elections can be called. (Photo by Fernando Llano/AP Photo)

In this 1997 photo released by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a seal hunter, right, threatens a cameraman with a knife during the filming of a seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada. “Huntwatch”, a documentary by the organization about the fight to end commercial seal hunts, premieres in September 2016 on Discovery. The producers say it includes grainy but powerful archive footage that had languished in the basement of the group’s headquarters on Cape Cod for nearly five decades. (Photo by Richard Sobol/IFAW via AP Photo)

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and U.S. President Donald Trump watch a woman carry a card announcing the rounds during a mixed martial arts fight in Madison Square Garden in New York, New York, U.S., November 2, 2019. (Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

This photo shows sunset in Eagle, Colo., Sunday, November 3, 2019. Daylight saving time ended, making sunset around 5 p.m. this time of year in Colorado. (Photo by Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily via AP Photo)