The man with a preference for dark colors is Arnold Tokko, a leading figure at the Tallinn company Robocop.
”For the last ten years, my life revolved around Tallinn’s Town Hall Square,” he says, broadly summing up those years. His office is now farther from the center, on Telliskivi Street, where he handles sales and training matters alongside three-time overall Estonian champion Ott Kiivikas. Before all that came a busy school life, as it so often does for restless boys. Sport and entertainment ran side by side, sometimes overlapping. Sport, though, became an integral part of his life.
He is a Tallinn boy, through and through. But he has also traveled far afield, as a job in Moscow required in the eighties. He attended the school on Raua Street, which at the time bore the name of the great Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Later, he went to school in Lasnamäe: School No. 13, from which he graduated 19 years ago. As it happened, life then steered the broad-shouldered young man into technical school. Two years later, he had qualified as a photographer with a broad range of skills. He worked in photography, but his thoughts were taking him in a new direction.
And then?
”It was a lively time for business. From ’87, yes, I got involved as a middleman. I worked in both clothing and exotic fruit sales,” Arnold Tokko says of a period when powerful winds of change were blowing through the Soviet Union. Conditions were particularly favorable in Moscow and Tallinn, at least for him and his colleagues. Few people were involved in joint ventures, so he found the right opportunity and stuck with it.
In June 1991, a high-quality art exhibition was held in the blue pavilion on Pirita Road. More than four hundred works by around a hundred artists. And what a lineup: Jüri Arrak, Peeter Mudist, Ado Lill and Andres Tolts, with Aili Vint and Epp-Maria Kokamägi among the women. ”It would be impossible to name them all here,” Tokko says, looking back on the time when he caught the art bug. He went into the gallery business with painter Jüri Arrak’s younger son. Tokko&Arrak soon became well known both here and across the gulf in Finland. He spent three years working closely with Ann Mikiver, who now runs Raatuse Gallery. The years 1992-1995 were lean ones for the art business, though. Conditions are more favorable now.
”I hope no good deed ever goes unpunished,” he says with a wry smile as the conversation turns to arts patronage. Then came a new venture. Another three-year undertaking, partly overlapping with his gallery years. Running gambling establishments was something new. Something different from the sports lottery that had swallowed people’s money for years, or the ordinary lotteries offering goods as prizes. Gaming tables and machines were installed both in the Old Town and outside Tallinn. In the autumn of 1995, he opened his first billiards hall.
How did things go?
”It kept me afloat,” the manager says with a dismissive wave, and there seems to be something left unsaid. His restaurant years began in 1996. His move from Metropol back to Raeköök, on the edge of the square, came down to what might seem a fairly peripheral concern. ”We made the mistake of staying open around the clock. You’ll never attract a decent crowd that way,” he says, drawing a lesson from experience.
And Raeköök?
That, too, kept very long hours. Raeköök’s advantage, he says, was its sheer spaciousness. A venue that size, spread over three floors, could draw a crowd that would seem enormous compared with some other restaurants. Of his previous life in restaurants, he says: ”Stability and the company’s reputation are what matter most. Everything serves the ultimate goal: staying big.”
Those who praised his establishment at the time included musicians such as Aak and Oja, Pets and Poeg, the late Kuldne Plaat award winner Mati Nuude, and many others who performed on its stage. To maintain your standards, even when you appear to be standing still, you have to keep moving at the right pace.
Sport has helped him cope
He is president of both EKAS and the Estonian Powerlifting Federation. He is pleased to see progress in his favorite sports. This year’s bodybuilding cup competition was successfully held at the Endla Theatre in Pärnu, while the champions were crowned on the Vanemuine stage in Tartu. Of course, you must not forget your own health either. Three times a week, he has to start the car and head off to a workout. Now that he has his coaching qualifications, he can coach young people and assess the equipment at various gyms.
You can read about how Estonia’s bodybuilders and powerlifters have fared in this collection of articles. Their achievements owe a great deal to the work of Tokko and his closest colleagues. And there will probably be plenty more of these welcome challenges for some time to come. At home in the evenings, however, his understanding, delicate wife and young son Christopher await an equally successful Arnold, this time in his role as a father.
Author: Aare Kreilis AI from this point on
But then came a new era.
The early 2000s were no longer that wild era of entrepreneurship when “finding the right opportunity” meant quick success. The market changed, competition grew, and those who could adapt survived. Arnold Tokko was one of them.
”Before, you simply had to act. Now, you had to start thinking,” he says, recalling the years that followed.
His focus shifted increasingly toward sport and health. What had once been a sideline became his main pursuit. Fitness and gym culture were slowly taking root in Estonia, and Tokko was at the forefront of that wave, both organizing and driving its development.
One of his central projects became the online hub that would later grow into Fitness.ee – a platform bringing together Estonia’s fitness community, coaches, competitions and knowledge. Modest at first, it later became a channel connecting the entire sector.
”It wasn’t just a website. It was a place where people came together,” he explains.
Alongside this, competitive sport took on a greater role. Bodybuilding and fitness in Estonia became more professional, the stages grew bigger, and standards rose. Tokko’s contribution went beyond organizing events: he was building the system. Competitions, judges, rules, athletes’ development – all fell within his sphere of influence.
Over the years, he became one of the key figures on Estonia’s fitness scene.
”If you do something, see it through,” is his simple principle.
But sport alone was no longer enough. The next step was the environment: the place where people actually train.
That gave rise to new ideas for gyms. More than just spaces: experiences. One of them is ArtGym – a private, aesthetically pleasing and distinctive training space where sport meets art. Works from galleries hang on the walls, and the space offers calm rather than crowds.
”People no longer want just to lift weights. They want the right environment,” Tokko explains.
The same thinking carried over into the digital world. Fitness.ee is no longer simply a website for articles: it is moving toward becoming a marketplace that brings together coaches, services and online stores. Training now extends beyond the gym into an entire ecosystem.
”Everything has to be in one place. People can no longer be bothered to visit ten different places.”
His role has changed along the way, too.
Once, he was on the front line himself, organizing, selling and building. Now, he is more of a strategist, setting the direction. But one thing has stayed the same.
Sport.
Training is still part of his weekly routine. These days, it is about more than results: it is also about health and longevity. His perspective has changed over time.
”You used to train to win. Today, you train to live,” he says.
And life itself?
The years have brought experience, but no slowing down. Quite the opposite: the projects are bigger, his outlook broader. Estonia’s market is small, but his ambitions reach beyond its borders.
Fitness, entrepreneurship, community – these three strands still run in parallel. Sometimes they intersect, sometimes they diverge, but the direction remains the same.
Forward.
”I think the best things are still ahead,” says Arnold Tokko.
And while his earlier life revolved around Town Hall Square, it now revolves around ideas.
A little more quietly.
But on a much bigger scale.
