Wooden Russian houses are falling into decay.
People are moving away from rural areas, where the wooden houses are.
So there are few people to take care of them.
And the upkeep can be expensive.
But the fine details can be beautiful.
Houses have been built from wood in Russia since ancient times.
Alexander Morozov, director of the local history museum in the town of Borovsk, told Reuters that many of Russia's most beautiful houses are made from wood.
"Wooden huts, wooden churches and chapels, wooden mills on the rivers. Only very wealthy citizens built on brick foundations," he said.
It's a shame. Works of fine craftsmanship are being lost.
These houses are sometimes more than 100 years old.
And some of them are built like a puzzle.
"The quality of work and the skills of the craftsmen were such that an ordinary peasant hut was like a Lego construction set," Morozov said.
"It was possible without a single nail to put together and dismantle a house to transfer it quickly to a new place... Nails were simply not needed."
Because of each building's careful construction, they're difficult to restore.
Russians living in the countryside simply don't have the money to do it.
Some homeowners are taking down carved lintels and other elements as they get worn away.
Instead, they're installing more practical replacements, like plastic windows.
Nina Vasilevna, for example, has lived in a wooden house for 64 years.
She remembers when the building was also used for a state farm office and library.
"Everything here needs repairing but nobody has any money," she told Reuters.
The houses live on the Russian countryside as mementos of an earlier time.
It's a time that's fading away, with no one to remember it.
But still, some of their haunted beauty lives on — for now.
