Artur Pashkov (Big Nate)

Artur Pashkov  (Belarusian: Артур Пашков) is an exchange student from the Republic of Belarus and one of Nate's all-time rivals until Nate became friends with him. He is a member of Enslave the Mollusk, the Timber Scouts, and the Doodlers. Artur is said to be very intelligent. He is a Major Character in Big Nate. Nate is annoyed with the fact that Jenny likes Artur instead of him and Artur's ability to defeat Nate at chess, taking away his title of number one player on the Chess Club. Artur is very nice to Nate and regards him as his best friend, and is generally unaware about the one part of Nate that really hates him. Artur speaks English in a broken way, which is what Nate thinks the reason is for girls liking Artur so much. Artur joined Enslave the Mollusk (despite Nate's protests) and became the lead singer, which moved Nate to drums. He became a Timber Scout and lost to Nate for the first time during one of the fundraisers.

Eventually, Artur became aware of Nate's one-sided hatred towards him and left Enslave the Mollusk, messing up the band's debut. However, he and Nate finally made up, resulting in the two becoming official friends and Artur rejoining the band.

In the comics, Artur is also the number one chess player on the team, which Nate isn't so happy about since he was knocked down to the second-best player because of Artur.