An enthusiast dressed as a zombie takes part in the annual Zombie Walk festival in Prague June 1, 2013. (Photo by David W. Cerny/Reuters)

A visitor relaxes in a sleeping module at Tokyo's tube Hotel “Capsule Inn Akihabara” on February 6, 2007 in Tokyo, Japan. The two-square-meter sleep modules are equipped with a TV, Radio and Wireless LAN and are priced at 3500 yen per night. Uptil recently it has mainly been the office workers who stay at such tube hotels when they cannot go home, but recently they are attracting many foreign travellers due to their Japanese style. (Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images)

Sister Rebecca Leis pours low-gluten alter bread batter into a machine that bakes the thin bread at the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration monastery in Clyde, Missouri, December 18, 2014. The Sisters have made communion wafers since 1910 and began making a low-gluten version in 2003 and have gone from 143 customers in 2004 to more than 11,000 customers from around the world. (Photo by Dave Kaup/Reuters)

A boy dressed as the Star Wars character Darth Vader attends a Star Wars themed church service, at the Zion Church in Berlin, Sunday, December 20, 2015. About 500 people, some carrying light saber props or wearing Darth Vader masks, attended the service, more than twice as many as usual on a Sunday. (Photo by Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)

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 model on a wheelchair presents creations by designer Takafumi Tsuruta from his Spring/Summer 2016 collection for his brand Tenbo, during Tokyo Fashion Week in Tokyo, Japan, October 13, 2015. (Photo by Yuya Shino/Reuters)

Toyoda Gosei Co Ltd's personal mobility concept airbag car "Flesby" is displayed at the 44th Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo, Japan, October 28, 2015. (Photo by Yuya Shino/Reuters)

Suzuki's Hanare concept car is displayed during the Tokyo Motor Show, in Tokyo, Japan on October 23, 2019. The 46th Tokyo Motor Show will be op​en​ to the general public from 25 October to 04 November 2019. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)