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.

“Born in 1965 at Tokyo, living at Tokyo. Starting shooting since 2008. 2011: 1x Photo Awards Honorable Mention (Street). 2012: Black and White Spider Awards 2nd Place (Portrait), Honorable Mention (Fashion); PX3 Gold Awards (Press); Israel Harvanism Street Contest 1st Place. 2013: Urban Picnic Street Contest Top30 Finalist; PX3 3rd Place (Portrait), Gold (Portrait - Personality), Gold (Press - People/Personality); Photolux + PhotoVogue Photo Contest 1st Place. 2014: Sony World Photography Awards Commended (Smile Category)”. – Tatsuo Suzuki. Photo: “Spring”. (Photo by Tatsuo Suzuki)

In this Monday, July 20, 2015 photo, Bill Lattin, the Southern California Timing Association president and Speed Week race director, stands in the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. A small city of tents, trailers and thousands of visitors appears almost every August in the Utah desert to watch cars, motorcycles and anything with wheels rocket across gleaming white sheets of salt at speeds of 400 mph. But wet weather has forced the cancellation of Speed Week for the second straight year and revived a debate about whether nearby mining is depleting the Bonneville Salt Flats of their precious resource. (Photo by Rick Bowmer/AP Photo)

People take part in a lowrider car show celebrating lowriding culture and supporting immigration, in San Francisco, California, U.S., September 20, 2025. (Photo by Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters)

Leonhard Nienbling is shown with his 6-month old pet baboon Jackl, who holds a 6-month old kitten, its playmate, June 29, 1952. Niebling has quite an animal collection at his home in Zirndorf, Germany. (Photo by Heinrich Sanden/AP Photo)

People take part in a sunset ceremony on the lower slopes of Glastonbury Tor as they celebrate Samhain at the Glastonbury Dragons Samhain Wild Hunt 2017 in Glastonbury on November 4, 2017 in Somerset, England. To celebrate Samhain, the Glastonbury Dragons, alongside Gwythyr Ap Greidal, the Summer King and the Winter King, (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Two Girls who managed to evade the police walk away as police on foot and horseback push back to te curd at Park Row, In New York on April 26, 1960, A milling throng of more than 1,000 High students who storned city hall in a Demonstration supporting teachers wage demands. (Photo by AP Photo)

“We take rusty old junk and we put love into it”. The old Motor City has a unique style in bicycles these days: from fat wheels and fake fuel tanks to stretched cycles with powerful sound systems – and even a family-sized BBQ. “Detroit’s custom bike scene developed alongside Slow Roll, a weekly cycle ride started in 2010 by Jason Hall and Mike MacKool. Now upwards of 2,000 people turn up each Monday to cruise a different part of the city. The week I go the crowd seems evenly split between black and white, male and female, city and suburbs. It’s the most inclusive cycle event I’ve ever witnessed”. (Photo by Jason Walker/Slow Roll Monday Nights)