Adam Ghiggio from Australia poses next to mutant mannequins which are lined up to be used as displays for the new video game “Rage” at the Los Angeles Convention Center on June 5, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. The Electronic Entertainment Expo officially starts on Tuesday. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Ukrainian police detain activists of women's rights group Femen as they protest against homophobia outside the parliament building in Kiev, Ukraine, November 12, 2015. Femen and gay rights activists are pushing parliament to adopt bills, including one that would ban discrimination in the workplace based on sexuality, which is included in a package of laws to liberalise Ukraine's visa regime with the EU. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

In this Sunday, May 22, 2016 photo, contestants in the first Miss Trans Israel beauty pageant gather for rehearsal in Tel Aviv, Israel. The pageant will be held at HaBima, Israel's national theater, in Tel Aviv on Friday. Tel Aviv has emerged as one of the world's most LGBT-friendly travel destinations, standing in sharp contrast to most of the rest of the Middle East, where gays can face persecution. (Photo by Oded Balilty/AP Photo)

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.

American singer-songwriter and actress Olivia Rodrigo accepts the Song of the Year award for “Drivers License” onstage during the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards at Barclays Center on September 12, 2021 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Tom Kaulitz and Heidi Klum attend Heidi Klum's 20th Annual Halloween Party presented by Amazon Prime Video and SVEDKA Vodka at Cathédrale New York on October 31, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for SVEDKA)

Youtubers wearing masks of pigs film a video at a shopping district which has fewer people than usually amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Tokyo, Japan, May 19, 2020. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)