Anne Leanzo, of Virginia, plays Ash from the Evil Dead movie and her daughter Gina, 15, plays Lilith from the Borderlands video game during Comic-Con 2017 in San Diego, California, July 22, 2017. (Photo by Bill Wechter/AFP Photo)

Gisele Marie, a Muslim woman and professional heavy metal musician, holds her Gibson Flying V electric guitar as walks down stairs at the end of a fund raising concert for the Syrian refugees in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro November 8, 2015. Based in Sao Paulo, Marie, 42, is the granddaughter of German Catholics, and converted to Islam several months after her father passed away in 2009. Marie, who wears the burka, has been fronting her brothers' heavy metal band "Spectrus" since 2012. (Photo by Nacho Doce/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.

Final-year student Alina Repkina prepares for a livestream of the Last Bell ceremony for school leavers at secondary school No 11 in Rostov-On-Don, Russia on May 30, 2020. It is the first time in Russia that such ceremonies have been held via video link due to the coronavirus lockdown restrictions. (Photo by Valery Matytsin/TASS)

A glitter rainbow mini dress, worn by Taylor Swift in her “End Game” music video, and other outfits in the William Morris Gallery in London, United Kingdom on March 31, 2023 unveils an exhibition of fashion designer Ashish. (Photo by Guy Bell/Alamy Live News)

A major new exhibition exploring the irresistible force of cuteness in contemporary culture at Somerset House, London on January 24, 2024. From emojis to internet memes, video games to plushie toys, food to loveable robotic design, cuteness has taken over our world. (Photo by Paul Quezada-Neiman/Alamy Live News)

In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Saturday, February 3, 2024, a Mi-28N “Night Hunter” helicopter gunship of the Russian air force fires rockets at a target at an unknown location in Ukraine. (Photo by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP Photo)

(L-R) Recording artists Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj perform onstage during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards at The Forum on August 24, 2014 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images)