A picture made available on 17 September 2014 shows extreme athletes resting in hammocks on webbings stretched between rocks during the International Highline Meeting in Monte Piana, near Misurina, in the northern Italian Alps, Italy, 08 September 2014. (Photo by Balazs Mohai/EPA)

Lea Michele attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating “Charles James: Beyond Fashion” on Monday, May 5, 2014, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Photo)

Collided passenger train cars are seen in Taebaek, South Korea, Tuesday, July 22, 2014. Two passenger trains collided head-on in eastern South Korea on Tuesday afternoon, killing one passenger and injuring dozens, fire officials said. (Photo by AFP Photo/Yonhap)

A staff member at the Rising Sun Anger Release Bar suits up in protective gear August 8, 2006 in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

A Brazil fan waits for the start of the group A World Cup soccer match between Brazil and Croatia, the opening game of the tournament, in the Itaquerao Stadium in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thursday, June 12, 2014. (Photo by Felipe Dana/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.

A Pakistani farmer guides his bulls as he competes in a traditional bull race in Khunda village in the northwestern district of Attock, some 80 kilometers from Islamabad on January 3, 2015. Tens of thousands of people gather whenever there is a bull race held in Pakistan which are usually the highlight of festivals organized in rural areas of the Asian country, and attract lots of spectators due to their thrilling nature. The traditional competition attracts landlords and farmers from all around the province where the race is held, and they all bring their fastest and strongest bulls in hopes of gaining a reputation. (Photo by Aamir Qureshi/AFP Photo)

A wild leopard runs on the stairs as it tries to escape from a compound of a house in Kathmandu, Nepal June 1, 2016. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)