NEPAL: A devotee is smeared with a vermillion powder while celebrating the “Sindoor Jatra” vermillion powder festival at Thimi, in Bhaktapur, Nepal, April 14, 2016. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A person reacts during an anti-war protest, after Russia launched a massive military operation against Ukraine, in Moscow, Russia on February 24, 2022. (Photo by Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)

A reveler strikes a pose during an unofficial carnival block party referred to as “blocos”, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, February 26, 2022. City Hall banned all blocos, the tightly packed street parties attended by those who cannot or don't want to buy pricey tickets for the official parade at the Sambadrome, due to a wave of the Omicron variant. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

A monument with old MiG fighter jet is seen next to a damaged civil infrastructure building at the site of a Russian military strike, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Vinnytsia, Ukraine on July 14, 2022. (Photo by Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

Lea Meyer of Team Germany falls into the water obstacle during the Women’s 3000m Steeplechase heats on day two of the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 at Hayward Field on July 16, 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Wire Press Association)

A woman walks past as South Korean soldiers participate in an anti-chemical and anti-terror exercise as part of the 2023 Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) at subway station on August 22, 2023 in Seoul, South Korea. The 11-day exercise, which features drills including the handling of chemical and biological attacks, is a regular joint exercise between U.S. and South Korean troops. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Members of the cast of Beowulf by Proper Job Theatre pose in costume ahead of their Viking procession through the streets of Kirklees, West Yorkshire in the first decade of November 2023, as part of Kirklees Year of Music 2023. (Photo by James Glossop/The Times)

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.