Federico Babina illustrates the imaginary architecture of movie director-designed homes
all images courtesy of Federico Babina.

The Maijishan Grottoes are a series of 194 caves cut in the side of the hill of Majishan in Tianshui, Gansu Province, northwest China. This example of rock cut architecture contains over 7,200 Buddhist sculptures and over 1,000 square meters of murals. Construction began in the Later Qin era (384-417 CE).

Haitians pull a car atop a pushcart in Port-au-Prince, October 11, 1994. The price of gasoline has fallen to about $6 US per gallon since U.S. forces occupied Haiti. Before, gasoline had cost as much as $10 U.S. per gallon. (Photo by Eric Draper/AP Photo)

A mine worker is seen outside “The Progreso” gold mine near La Paz, November 13, 2014. According to local media, the president of the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) Marcelo Zabalaga said on Thursday that the falling price of oil and minerals in the international market will not affect the national economy. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

American model Cindy Crawford, 55, recreated her famous Pepsi advert from 1992 for the University of Wisconsin’s Cancer Care Unit. Limited edition prints of the model, shot by the photographer David Yarrow, have a $40,000 price tag and have raised $1 million. (Photo by David Yarrow Photography)

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 man and a woman jump over a bonfire during Ivan Kupala Day celebrations held by the Belarusian State Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Lifestyle in the village of Ozertso near Minsk, Belarus on July 4, 2020. Ivan Kupala Day, also known as Ivana-Kupala or Kupala Night, is a traditional pagan holiday celebrated in eastern Slavic cultures. Various rituals are traditionally performed on Kupala Night, including making flower wreaths, fortune-telling, jumping over bonfires, and burning a wheel-like effigy symbolizing the sun. (Photo by Natalia Fedosenko/TASS)