A Shi'ite Muslim man bleeds after tapping his forehead with a razor during a Muharram procession to mark Ashoura in Nabatieh town, southern Lebanon November 4, 2014. Ashoura, which falls on the 10th day of the Islamic month of Muharram, commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of Prophet Mohammad, who was killed in the seventh century battle of Kerbala. (Photo by Ali Hashisho/Reuters)

A family pose for a picture as thousands of redheads fill a Dutch city Breda to celebrate International Redhead Day event in Breda, The Netherlands on Sunday, 4 September 2016. Every year natural redheads from more than 80 countries come together at “Roodharigendag” annual weekend long festival to celebrate their ginger genes. The event also holds the world record for the largest number of natural redheads being in one place. (Photo by Akmen/London News Pictures)

Students from CAS Ballet Theatre School stretch on the sidewalk Saturday, February 20, 2016, in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Photo by Junfu Han/The Ann Arbor News via AP Photo)

A woman jumps in the air as she poses for a photo during New Year celebrations in the Manhattan borough of New York, January 1, 2016. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/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.

Friends and relatives mourn by the coffin during the wake for Florjohn Cruz, who was killed in a police drugs buy-bust operation, in Manila, Philippines late October 20, 2016. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Downhill bikers Kemal Mulic (R-L), Tarik Hadzic and Kamer Kolar train on the disused bobsled track from the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics on Trebevic mountain near Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, August 8, 2015. Abandoned and left to crumble into oblivion, most of the 1984 Winter Olympic venues in Bosnia's capital Sarajevo have been reduced to rubble by neglect as much as the 1990s conflict that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. (Photo by Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

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)