Mexico City resident Romina Montoya takes a playful selfie wearing a protective face mask over her eyes and nose, in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo state, Mexico, Wednesday, January 6, 2021. Concern is spreading that the critical winter holiday tourism success could be fleeting because it came as COVID-19 infections in both Mexico and the United States were reaching new heights. (Photo by Emilio Espejel/AP Photo)

A screen grab from a police body camera video shows the pilot of a plane that crashed on railway tracks being rescued by Los Angeles Police Department officers moments before a train hit the aircraft in Los Angeles, California, U.S. January 9, 2022. (Photo by LAPD/Handout via Reuters)

Girls refresh themselves and their dog with water spray frames set along the central street of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev during a heatwave on June 25, 2020. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP 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.

“Richard Wilson (born May 24, 1953) is a sculptor, installation artist and musician. Wilson's work is characterised by architectural concerns with volume, illusionary spaces and auditory perception”. – Wikipedia

Photo: An installation by the artist Richard Wilson, entitled “Turning the Place Over”, is built into the condemned Cross Keys House in Moorfields as part of the Capital of Culture for 2008, on June 25, 2007 in Liverpool, England. The piece consists of an 8 metre ovoid cut from the building's facade that oscillates in three dimensions. (Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

A Hypsiboas crepitans frog is pictured at a terrarium in Caracas November 30, 2015. Venezuelan frogs and toads are in critical danger due to climate change as rising temperatures complicate reproduction and spread a deadly fungus, say scientists, who liken the species to canaries in a coalmine warning of imminent danger. The survival of a group of nearly 20 frog and toad species, which top Venezuela's list of endangered species, may rest on a small group of academics in a Caracas laboratory attempting to recreate the amphibians' natural reproductive conditions. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

Chinese artist Zhou Jie takes a nap on an unfinished iron wire bed, one of her sculpture works, after lunch as a friend of hers looks on at Beijing Now Art Gallery, in Beijing August 11, 2014. Zhou started her art project titled “36 Days” on August 9, in which she would live inside an exhibition hall with an unfinished iron wire bed, some iron wire sculptures in the shape of stuffed animal dolls, a certain amount of food and her mobile phone, for 36 days. The entire process is open to visitors and she may also interact with them, according to Zhou. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Police detain a woman during a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government's handling of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, near Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem on July 24, 2020. Reimposed coronavirus curbs after a rise in new COVID-19 cases have prompted Israelis demanding better state aid to take to the streets in almost daily demonstrations. Public anger has also been fueled by corruption alleged against Netanyahu, who went on trial in May for bribery, fraud and breach of trust – charges he denies. (Photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters)