People participate in a winter fishing event in Changchun, Jilin province, China, December 25, 2016. Picture taken December 25, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A man sits on a park bench in a flooded park as the Cape Fear River rises above its usual height in Wilmington, North Carolina, September 14, 2018. (Photo by Jonathan Drake/Reuters)

Runner-up. “The heavens opened and the streets around Shibuya, Tokyo, were suddenly drenched in even more colour and movement. I was taking photos (my friend was holding the umbrella) when I noticed this woman at the crossing. I’m pleased with the futuristic feel of the image”. (Photo by Katherine Bridgestock/The Guardian)

Yin and yang. Sеxy women grey background. Sensual women in erotic lingerie. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

View of an egg fried on the pavement in Pozo Hondo, Santiago del Estero, Argentina on January 23, 2016, while the real feel was 57 degrees Celsius. Pozo Hondo's Mayor Claudio Nicolau fried an egg on the pavement of the main square of the city Saturday. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

The Enemy, 1944. With the outbreak of world war two, photojournalism was enlisted in defence of Mother Russia. In this photo by Anatoli Egorov, who was wounded in action, corporal Stepan Vasiljevich Ovcharenko shoots at enemy troops with a machine gun. (Photo by Anatoli Egorov/Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography)

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.

In this handout GOES satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Irene reaches hurricane strength as it moves across Puerto Rico towards Hispaniola August 22, 2011 in the Caribbean Sea. Irene, the first hurricane of the Atlantic storm season, brought torrential rains and winds to Puerto Rico, downing trees and powerlines and flooding streets. The expected path will bring Irene through the Bahamas and is likely to hit Florida and up the east coast of the U.S. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images)