Tyra Banks prepares to pose as she arrives at the iHeartRadio MuchMusic Video Awards (MMVA) in Toronto, Canada, August 26, 2018. (Photo by Mark Blinch/Reuters)

A patient solves a rubik's cube at a temporary hospital converted from “Wuhan Livingroom” in central China's Hubei Province on February 10, 2020. In face of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, Wuhan authorities have transformed public venues such as exhibition centers and gymnasiums into temporary hospitals. The hospitals have a large capacity of treating patients with mild symptoms and play an important role in isolating the source of infection and cutting off the routes of infection during epidemic prevention. The first batch of patients was hospitalized on Feb. 5. (Photo by Chine Nouvelle/SIPA Press/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Museum assistant and former Soviet soldier, Sheikh Abdullah looks at a display in the Manzar-e Jahad, or Jihad Museum, which depicts the Soviet invasion of 1979 and the Afghan resistance, in Herat, on February 15, 2014. Sheikh Abdullah, who was a Soviet intelligence officer by the name of Khakimov Bakhrodin, was captured after being injured in battle with the Mujahideen. Abdullah stayed with his captors, converted to Islam and was renamed Abdullah. He never returned to his former homeland and now works at the Jihad Museum. (Photo by Aref Karimi/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

Sikh devotee take part in Nagar Keertan procession on the occasion of Guru Gobind Singh birth anniversary in Allahabad, India on December 29, 2016. Guru Gobind Singh, born Gobind Rai (1666 – 1708), was the 10th Sikh Guru, a spiritual master, warrior, poet and philosopher. When his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam, Guru Gobind Singh was formally installed as the leader of the Sikhs at age nine, becoming the last of the living Sikh Gurus. (Photo by Prabhat Kumar Verma/Pacific Press via ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

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.

In this image released on October 1, model Jazzelle Zanaughtti is seen onstage during Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 presented by Amazon Prime Video at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California; and broadcast on October 2, 2020. (Photo by Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Presented by Amazon Prime Video)

In this image released on September 22, American actress and singer Vanessa Hudgens attends Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 3 presented by Amazon Prime Video at The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in Los Angeles, California; and broadcast on September 24, 2021. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 3 Presented by Amazon Prime Video)