Katy Perry poses backstage during rehearsals for the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 25, 2017 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images for MTV)

American singer Bleta “Bebe” Rexha poses with fans at the iHeartRadio MuchMusic Video Awards (MMVAs) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on August 26, 2018. (Photo by Mark Blinch/Reuters)

Paris Jackson, left, and Caroline D'Amore kiss in the press room at the MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on Sunday, August 27, 2017, in Inglewood, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Photo)

A still image taken from a video shows a tamed golden eagle soaring during a traditional hunting contest outside the village of Kaynar in Almaty region, Kazakhstan on December 9, 2019. (Photo by Pavel Mikheyev/Reuters)

On the Internet appeared the video, on which shows, according to the author of the video, as in the photos, which were taken by U.S. space probe MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging), American automatic interplanetary station (AWS) for the study of Mercury, on the surface of Mercury has been found an unusual object... (Photo by NASA)

American rapper Megan Jovon Ruth Pete, known professionally as Megan Thee Stallion promotes a new music video with a topless photo in the first decade of September 2022. (Photo by theestallion/Instagram)

People work to rescue a dog from under rubble, in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake, in Iskenderun, Turkey February 8, 2023, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. (Photo by Gurcan Ozturk via 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.