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 contestant for Miss Tiffany's Universe Thailand 2018 gets ready backstage during the annual transgender beauty contest “Miss Tiffany's Universe Thailand 2018” at the Tiffany's Show Theatre in Pattaya city, Chonburi province, Thailand, 31 August 2018. Thirty Thai transgender contestants took part in the final stage of the annual beauty contest which is aimed to promote the tourism industry in the resort city of Pattaya city. (Photo by Narong Sangnak/EPA/EFE)

Firefighters and emergency personnel climb the stairs during the Melbourne Firefighter Stair Climb at the Crown Metropol Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia, 10 September 2022. The Melbourne Firefighter Stair Climb features firefighters and emergency personnel climbing 28 flights of stairs wearing 25kgs of turnout gear to raise money for mental health. (Photo by Con Chronis/EPA/EFE)

“Newton was born in Berlin, the son of Klara “Claire” (Marquis) and Max Neustädter, a button factory owner. His family was Jewish. Newton attended the Heinrich-von-Treitschke-Realgymnasium and the American School in Berlin. Interested in photography from the age of 12 when he purchased his first camera, he worked for the German photographer Yva (Elsie Neulander Simon) from 1936. The increasingly oppressive restrictions placed on Jews by the Nuremberg laws meant that his father lost control of the factory in which he manufactured buttons and buckles; he was briefly interned in a concentration camp on “Kristallnacht”, November 9, 1938, which finally compelled the family to leave Germany. Newton's parents fled to South America. He was issued with a passport just after turning 18, and left Germany on December 5, 1938. At Trieste he boarded the “Conte Rosso” (along with about 200 others escaping the Nazis) intending to journey to China. After arriving in Singapore he found he was able to remain there, first and briefly as a photographer for the Straits Times and then as a portrait photographer”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Sigourney Weaver by Helmut Newton, 1995.

A Tenggerese shaman praying for worshippers at Widodaren cave during the Tenggerese Hindu Yadnya Kasada festival on July 31, 2015 in Probolinggo, East Java, Indonesia. The festival is the main festival of the Tenggerese people and lasts about a month. On the fourteenth day, the Tenggerese make the journey to Mount Bromo to make offerings of rice, fruits, vegetables, flowers and livestock to the mountain gods by throwing them into the volcano's caldera. The origin of the festival lies in the 15th century when a princess named Roro Anteng started the principality of Tengger with her husband Joko Seger, and the childless couple asked the mountain Gods for help in bearing children. The legend says the Gods granted them 24 children but on the provision that the 25th must be tossed into the volcano in sacrifice. The 25th child, Kesuma, was finally sacrificed in this way after initial refusal, and the tradition of throwing sacrifices into the caldera to appease the mountain Gods continues today. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Images of an American ghost town that was home to gold mines and features a plane which crashed during the filming of 3000 Miles to Graceland starring Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell reveal the remnants of the once thriving location. An assortment of rusted vehicles which include a canary yellow bus, caravans and cars have all been left behind in the desert. (Photo by Abandoned Southeast/Mediadrumworld.com)

Fashionistas wait for the start of Johannesburg Fashion Week 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Wednesday, November 8, 2023. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

Singer Taylor Swift poses at the 2016 iHeartRadio Music Awards in Inglewood, California, April 3, 2016. (Photo by Danny Moloshok/Reuters)