This photo taken on April 25, 2015 shows a pet male monkey named “JK” (R) and his partner “Shaki” (L) eating dinner at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. Jamil, a 45-year single Malaysian man, has unusual pets – two macaque monkeys. JK and Shaki, both nine years old, usually ride with Jamil on his motorcycle and they often have dinner together in public restaurants, drawing instant public awe. (Photo by Mohd Rasfan/AFP Photo)

Audrey Tautou attends “La Delicatesse” Paris Premiere on December 13, 2011 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

English television personality Gabby Allen attends the 2025 BAFTA Television Awards with P&O Cruises at The Royal Festival Hall on May 11, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by James Curley)

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 Brazil fan waits for the start of the group A World Cup soccer match between Brazil and Croatia, the opening game of the tournament, in the Itaquerao Stadium in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thursday, June 12, 2014. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

A staff member at the Rising Sun Anger Release Bar suits up in protective gear August 8, 2006 in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) looks through a window of a research bathyscaphe while submerging into the waters of the Black Sea as he takes part in an expedition near Sevastopol, Crimea, August 18, 2015. (Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/Reuters/RIA Novosti/Kremlin)

It’s time to start watching for Comet PANSTARRS, one of two comets to get excited about in 2013. Photo: This image provided by NASA shoaws the comet PANSTARRS as seen from Mount Dale, Western Australia on March 5, 2013. According to NASA on March 10, it will make its closest approach to the sun about 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) away. As it continues its nightly trek across the sky, the comet may get lost in the sun's glare but should return and be visible to the naked eye by March 12. (Photo by AP Photo/NASA)