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.

Birds fly over the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, western Japan July 29, 2015. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing about 140,000 by the end of the year in a city of 350,000 residents, in the world's first nuclear attack. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Influenced by the shadows scorched into outdoor surfaces by the heat of the blasts 70 years ago, Reuters photographer Issei Kato pays homage to survivors, residents and historic buildings in both cities in a personal project that captures the shadows of today. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

Labourers who work nearby nap on a road as cars drive past in Chongqing Municipality, July 23, 2013. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Four men dressed as zombies participate in a Zombie Walk procession in the streets of Paris October 12, 2013. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

A young Free Syrian Army fighter holds a rifle in Haresta neighbourhood of Damascus January 16, 2013. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

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)

Replica of an old traditional Icelandic house from the 1800 with eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, 2013. (Photo by Ingólfur Bjargmundsson/Getty Images)

A picturesque supercell formation in the northwest of Booker, Texas from June 2013. (Photo by Mike Olbinski/Barcroft Media)