Iraqi soldiers from 9th Armoured Division give drops of water to a dehydrated child rescued earlier by soldiers at the frontline, during the ongoing fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants near the Old City in western Mosul, Iraq June 13, 2017. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)

Sеx worker Geraldine, wearing cat make-up, excitedly holds up a dress she is thinking of buying from a street vendor, so that her partner, sitting nearby to keep her company, can see it, as she waits for clients outside the Revolution subway station, in Mexico City, Saturday, March 13, 2021. According to Geraldine, 30, the pandemic has cut clients and increased risks to the sеx workers but has also brought out more assistance for them too, both from dedicated organizations such as the activist group Brigada Callejera or “The Street Brigade” and from individuals who have donated food or clothing. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

Wally Collins holds a bust of author Ernest Hemingway after winning the 2014 “Papa” Hemingway Look-Alike Contest in this handout photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau at Sloppy Joe's Bar in Key West, Florida July 19, 2014. Collins, a Phoenix resident, won the title on his sixth try during the event that was the highlight of Key West's annual Hemingway Days festival. (Photo by Andy Newman/Reuters/Florida Keys News Bureau)

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.

Syrian refugee girl Nur El-Huda, 9, shows a drawing of her home in Syria, in her classroom in Yayladagi refugee camp in Hatay province near the Turkish-Syrian border, Turkey, December 16, 2015. Syria's conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead, pushed millions more into exile, and had a profound effect on children who lost their homes or got caught up in the bloodletting. The drawings of young refugees living in Turkey show their memories of home and hopes for its future. The pictures also point to the mental scars borne by 2.3 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey, more than half of them children. (Photo by Umit Bektas/Reuters)

Voters line up to cast their ballots at a polling station in the city of Qom, Iran. Elections for Iran's parliament (Majlis) and Assembly of Experts kicked off on Friday, February 26, 2016. (Photo by Ahmad Halabisaz/Xinhua via ZUMA Wire)

A partial solar eclipse is seen as a labourer works at a construction site in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 9, 2016. (Photo by Samrang Pring/Reuters)

A man walks on the road between Nouahibou and Nouakchott, where three Spanish aid workers were abducted in Mauritania, December 3, 2009. (Photo by Rafael Marchante/Reuters)