A special kind of tournament involving both man and machine has taken place in Moscow. Twenty-tonne excavators and ten-tonne loaders perform in staged combat, machine against machine, and machine against man.

The best Moscow designers worked on the performance. They call themselves the “iron knights of the XXI century”.

“This show combines things that are usually impossible to put together,”,says show director Rudolf. “We have managed to unite people, horses and excavators in one performance, engaging about 200 participants, and we made them look natural. That's something that is very hard to pull off”.

But there were not just vehicles that manoeuvred. Merlin the Magician was taking centre-stage together with King Arthur; both were trying to outwit the machines that had to face the challenge.

Man against machine: this is not the end of the world; nobody wins in this battle, except for spectators who can get a feel of combat of both the Middle Ages and the XXI century.

Actors, horses, and ballet dancers took part in the performance, and as the centrepiece, a clown danced on just a piece of thread.

“Participating in the show is an amazing pleasure,” Aleksey, actor performing Merlin’s part, said. “I have never come across anything like this”.

Organisers say it took them a year to come up with the idea and set the show up.

“Actors are a lot like children,” Vadim, confessed. He performed King Arthur’s part. “We believe in fairy tales, and we want to bring these tales to the people”.

Few understood the full meaning and purpose of the show. Nonetheless, everybody who was there, were not left disappointed by what they saw.