The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is seen in an aerial view on February 20, 2014 in the Mojave Desert in California near Primm, Nevada. The largest solar thermal power-tower system in the world, owned by NRG Energy, Google and BrightSource Energy, opened last week in the Ivanpah Dry Lake and uses 347,000 computer-controlled mirrors to focus sunlight onto boilers on top of three 459-foot towers, where water is heated to produce steam to power turbines providing power to more than 140,000 California homes. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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.

“Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening. The event is described by many participants as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A fireball billows up from a 52-foot tall wooden man as it goes up in flames September 2, 2000 during the15th annual Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert near Gerlach, Nevada. Despite high winds, dust storms, and a bit of rain, some 27,000 people camped out on a remote desert playa, or dry lake, for the week-long counter-cultural celebration of art and “radical self-expression”. (Photo by David McNew/Newsmakers)

Men dressed in protective suits stand around the coffin of Kenyan doctor Daniel Alushula who died of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), during his funeral in the village of Khumusalaba, in Kakamega county, Kenya on November 13, 2020. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

Indonesian men carry their belongings as they wade through the water at a flooded neighborhood following heavy rains in Bekasi, Indonesia, Monday, February 22, 2021. Thousands of residents are being evacuated on the outskirts of Indonesia’s capital amid flooding after the Citarum River embankment broke. (Photo by Achmad Ibrahim/AP Photo)

Japan's Shingo Kunieda celebrates with trophy after winning the men's wheelchair tennis final against Argentina's Gustavo Fernandez at the French Open in Paris on June 4, 2022. (Photo by Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)

Germany's Nikias Arndt, left, receives encouragement from a spectator during the men's elite road race at the world road cycling championships in Wollongong, Australia, Sunday, September 25, 2022. (Photo by Rick Rycroft/AP Photo)

Spanish singer Rosalia Vila Tobella, known mononymously as Rosalía performs during Louis Vuitton Menswear ready-to-wear Fall/Winter 2023-2024 collection show as part of Men's Fashion Week in Paris, France on January 19, 2023. (Photo by Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters)