4 April 2008, at its 9th Extraordinary Session, the Maslihat of Almaty unanimously approved Yessimov's nomination at the post of akim of the city. On 16 October 2008, at the VIII Extraordinary Nur Otan City Conference, Yessimov was elected as the chairman of the Nur Otan city wing. That same year, the Alatau district was established out of the problematic villages earlier annexed by the city. In 2010, Yessimov continually brought up the issue of particular raise of salaries of Almaty medics and teachers to the Government referring to the high living standards in the city. In 2011, the Asian Winter Games were successfully hosted in Almaty; for the purpose of which sportive infrastructure was created in the city Yessimov initiated establishment of municipal public transport and gradual driving private carriers out of the market. That same year, the Almaty Metro was opened. Yessimov started his policies from solution of problems of cheated participants in shared-equity residential construction. At that time, the city counted 125 residential compounds with frozen construction activities. As a result, with support of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, almost all the construction investors of the city got housings In less than five years, 20 new substations were constructed in the city which solved energy problems to a great extent. On 6 October 2013, by initiative of Yessimov and Olympic Champion Aleksandr Vinokurov, the Almaty Administration organized and successfully hosted the first in Kazakh history professional cycling race “Tour of Almaty” under the auspices of UCI, Category 1,2. The cycling race was broadcast by the Eurosport TV Channel. In 2014, for the first time in the history of the city, the gross regional product volume of Almaty exceeded 8 trillion tenge. That same year, thousands of young creative teachers of the city received monetary awards of 300,000 tenge. By decision of the extraordinary XXIX Session of Almaty City Mäslihat, Nauryzbai District was established, and the area of the city expanded. By the end of 2014, the population of Nauryzbay exceeded 180,000 people. Yessimov also advocated of mountain skiing tourism development in Almaty Region, claiming that it is one of the most promising economy lines. Criticism Yessimov was criticized by multiple city dwellers for a bad preparation towards winter season heating system and the removal of snow. His idea to construct a mountain skiing facility on environmentally protected mountain slopes near Almaty also received criticism. In 2015, he was mocked