The zombies, cowgirls, and witches were out in force Saturday night on Clematis Street as thousands of people came to Moonfest to celebrate Halloween. They came from Broward County, Boynton Beach, Wellington, Port St. Lucie, and as far away as Germany and Sweden. Photo: Joe Smith, 60, Boca Raton. (Photo by Thomas Cordy/The Palm Beach Post)

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.

“On Friday, after something of a show trial, three young women in a Russian punk band were found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison for an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral earlier this year”. – Daniel Schwartz via CBC News

Photo: A woman wears on her chest the text “free p*ssy riot” as a demonstration by supporters of the jailed feminist punk band p*ssy Riot takes place outside the Russian Embassy on August 17, 2012 in London, England. The three women who staged an anti-Kremlin protest in a church in February, were found guilty today of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, and could face a three-year jail sentence. Supporters are gathering in several cities around the world today as a mark of solidarity. (Photo by Dan Kitwood)

A woman holds up the Chinese national flag as people gather to watch the the launch of the Long March 5B rocket carrying China's Tianhe space station core module from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan Province, China, 29 April 2021. China launched into space the core module of its space station, marking the beginning of a series of launch missions to complete the space station by the end of next year. (Photo by Matjaz Tancic/EPA/EFE)

Father Felix Mendoza, a Venezuelan Catholic priest, center, prays over a woman who cries, saying she is in physical pain, at a public hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, May 11, 2021, amid the new coronavirus pandemic. Father Felix has been visiting patients at the hospital to comfort the sick, for the last 20 years. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

An artwork of the famous street artist Tvboy is seen on a wall of the House of Culture, which was heavily damaged during Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv, Ukraine on January 29, 2023. (Photo by Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

American actress and model Bella Thorne in the first decade of March 2023 jokes she's in “b*tch mode”. (Photo by bellathorne/Instagram)

People take part in the annual kite festival at Abu Nawas park in Baghdad, on March 17, 2023. (Photo by Murtadha Ridha/AFP Photo)