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.

Girls, who are part of Afghan Mobile Mini Circus for Children (MMCC), participate in a juggling competition in Kabul, Afghanistan August 12, 2015. The MMCC, founded by David Mason from Denmark, teaches cooperation and creativity to children scarred by years of war in Afghanistan. Despite the dangers, the project has grown so popular that it now runs centres in ten provinces and has hundreds of regular students. The circus makes visits to internally displaced persons' camps, schools, orphanages, and holds annual festivals. The children are taught the skills of juggling clubs, walking on stilts and acrobatics. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

Pictures from Tasmania’s central plateau, shot by wilderness photographer Dan Broun, show the extraordinary damage wrought by more than a week of bushfires following lightning strikes in Australia’s southernmost state on January 13. 2016. The world heritage area was home to a range of unique alpine flora including pencil pines, king billy pines and cushion plants, some more than 1,000 years old. Now more than 10,000ha of land has been incinerated, and ecologist say that, unlike eucalyptus trees, the ancient flora will not recover. (Photo by Dan Broun)

A Maasai man in ceremonial dress poses for visitors to take photographs of him in front of one of around a dozen pyres of ivory, in Nairobi National Park, Kenya Thursday, April 28, 2016. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has stacked 105 tons of ivory consisting of 16,000 tusks, and 1 ton of rhino horn, from stockpiles around the country, in preparation for it to be torched on Saturday to encourage global efforts to help stop the poaching of elephants and rhinos. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

Mongolia's Olympic wrestler Battsetseg Soronzonbold (front) fights with her training partner during a daily training session at the Mongolia Women’s National Wrestling Team training centre in Bayanzurkh district of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, July 1, 2016. Battsetseg Soronzonbold became a national hero in her native Mongolia after winning wrestling bronze at the London Olympics and is determined to turn the medal into gold in Rio next month. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Workers from the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium and Imagine Exhibitions put together an animatronic spinosaurus outside the science center in West Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday, October 27, 2015. The giant spinosaurus is part of the Dinosaurs Around the World exhibit, set to open on November 1. (Photo by Maria Lorenzino/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP Photo)

An aerial view shows the 11/19 pit and twin slag heaps at the former coal mine site in Loos-en-Gohelle, northern France, November 1, 2015. Loos-en-Gohelle, a town of 7000 inhabitants in the North of France, marked by the closure of coal mines in 1970, has demonstrated a successful transition from coal to a green economy. (Photo by Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)

A military police officer patrols in the Roquette Pinto shantytown, part of the Mare slum complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. The Brazilian army has begun to pull out of one of Rio de Janeiro's most violent slums, with police assuming responsibility for security in the area. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)