There are few places I want to visit more than Russia. Maybe I’ve just read Anna Karenina one too many times (no, that’s not possible), but if I were to suddenly fall into a Scrooge McDuck-style pile of money, I would spend it all on a ticket to Russia.

If I could go to Russia, I would want to see everything—not just the cities, though Saint Petersburg looks like magic made of stone—and I mean everything. I want to ride the Transsiberian railroad and stare out at all the miles of quiet, scarcely inhabited land. Oddly enough, my desire was only amplified by this recent story from the Smithsonian about a family that lived in the wilderness of Siberia for over 40 years without any human contact. Driven from society by religious persecution, the family of five survived off the land, hunting for meat and dining on bark when there was no better food to be found. It’s really, truly fascinating (not to mention strangely inspiring).

But I’m digressing from what I wanted to blog about, which is this fantastic series of photographs by Richard Davies. The UK-based artist lived my dream and journeyed through the northern part of the continent, capturing images of grand old wooden churches. While I’m familiar with the shapes of the buildings (onion domes that billow out and spires that aspire to the heavens) I don’t think I’ve ever seen them rendered in wood quite like this. Beautiful, right? See the entire series here and maybe even buy his book (it’s going on my Amazon wishlist).