American singer Chappell Roan is seen shooting a new music video on July 08, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by BG048/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

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 2, Bella Hadid is seen backstage 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 Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 Presented by Amazon Prime Video)

American singer-songwriter Chappell Roan attends the MTV Video Music Awards in Elmont, New York, U.S., September 11, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

American singer Tinashe attends the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., September 12, 2023. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

American singer Tinashe Jorgensen Kachingwe, known mononymously as Tinashe attends the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards at Barclays Center on September 12, 2021 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

TV personality Kylie Jenner attends the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)