A Tengger tribesman prays at Mount Bromo during the annual Kasada ceremony in East Java on August 12, 2014. The Kasada ceremony is a festival held every 14th day of the Kasada month in the traditional Hindu lunar calender to honour Sang Hyang Widhi (God Almighty) and is based on the legend of Roro Anteng and Joko Seger from the Majapahit Kingdom, from which their Tengger tribe name originates. Hundreds of worshippers from the Tengger tribe offer food and livestock as a symbolic sacrifice which they throw into the crater for the blessings of safety and prosperity to their familyies and community. (Photo by Juni Kriswanto/AFP Photo)

A devotee of the Chinese Bang Neow Shrine, with two plastic guns pierced through his cheeks, takes part in a street procession celebrating the annual vegetarian festival in Phuket September 29, 2014. The festival, featuring face-piercing, spirit mediums and strict vegetarianism celebrates the local Chinese community's belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

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.

Heads of love dolls are seen on the shelf on March 9, 2017 in Tokyo, Japan. Japan's oldest and largest “love doll” maker Orient Industry, has been producing silicone love dolls since 1977, and has seen there is a trend for intimate relationships with silicone dolls in Japan. (Photo by Taro Karibe/Getty Images)

Demonstrators take part in a mass “face-sitting protest” outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on December 12, 2014, as they protest against changes to p*rnography regulations. An amendment to the 2003 Communities Act applies the same strict rules to p*rn bought online as those included in the guidelines set out by the British Board of Film Censors for DVDs. The new laws ban films that feature s*x acts, such as spanking, caning, strangulation, aggressive whipping, humiliation, and face-sitting. Ministers say the rules have been brought in to protect s*x workers. But campaigners say it is an attempt to censor and control the internet. Paid-for videos shot overseas and viewed online in the UK are not affected by the new rules, which were introduced on December 2, 2014. (Photo by Leon Neal/AFP Photo)

The Haʻikū Stairs, also known as the Stairway to Heaven or Haʻikū Ladder, is a steep hiking trail on the island of Oʻahu. The trail began as a wooden ladder spiked to the cliff on the south side of the Haʻikū Valley. It was installed in 1942 to enable antenna cables to be strung from one side of the cliffs above Haʻikū Valley to the other. A building to provide a continuous communication link between Wahiawā and Haʻikū Valley Naval Radio Station was constructed at the peak of Puʻukeahiakahoe, elevation about 2,800 feet (850 m). The antennae transmitted very low frequency radio signals from a 200,000-watt Alexanderson alternator in the center of Haʻikū valley. The signals could reach US Navy submarines as far away as Tokyo Bay while the submarines were submerged.

Angela Ponce, 24, (R) gets help from a fellow contestant getting dressed to compete in the "Miss World Spain" pageant in Estepona, southern Spain, October 25, 2015. Ponce, the first openly transsexual woman to compete to represent Spain at the Miss World pageant, was eliminated in the first knockout round. But Ponce already feels like a winner, she said, because her participation has brought visibility for the transgender community. "We need to educate society for diversity", Ponce said. (Photo by Susana Vera/Reuters)

Indian bride takes part in a mass marriage ceremony under chief minister's welfare scheme (Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojna) on the occasion of the Basant Panchami festival, in Bhopal, India, 30 January 2020. (Photo by Sanjeev Gupta/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)