If you are looking at getting a different perspective of the City of Nur Sultan, a walk along the Esil Embankment is a great way to get this. It stretches along the whole breath of the City and gives you a unique perspective to a skyline that you would probably only see from the main roads via a car or a bus. Long this path, you would come across local flowers which are breathtaking on their own. However due to inadequate regular maintenance, you will find some parts of the embankment giving way to the river and in such instances an alternative route needs to be sought. By and large a great place to walk and jog.

Esil River: (Russian: Иши́м/Išim; Kazakh: Есіл/Esil, ه‌سىل) is a river running through Kazakhstan and Russia. It is 2,450 kilometers (1,520 mi) long; its average discharge is 56.3 cubic meters per second (1,990 cu ft/s). It is a left tributary of the Ertis River. The Esil River is partly navigable in its lower reaches. The upper course of the Esil passes through Nur Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan. In Russia, the river travels through a vast marshland for its course, and has countless meanders and oxbow lakes. The river freezes from late November until March.

According to the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Nur Sultan was chosen as the capital in part due to the presence of the river. The city is also divided into two sections, the Right (northern) Bank of the Esil or the old town, and the Left (southern) Bank, where the new government buildings such as the Ak Orda, the House of the Government, and the Supreme Court are located, as well as many prestigious apartment and living complexes.

Since 1998, the Esil River in Nur Sultan has been actively managed, for flood management and maintaining water level, in order to provide for recreational use and ensure the showpiece appearance. It is dammed downstream of central Nur Sultan, keeping its level higher than it otherwise would be most of the time, while the river bottom has been made deeper, in order to let flood waters through faster. In central Nur Sultan, near the city park, there is now a public beach and pedalo boat rental; meanwhile, if the river had not been dammed, "citizens would have been able to walk across it". Another dam will be constructed upstream of the city, for better flood control.

The city authorities also have plans for further deepening the river, which will eventually allow small passenger boats to operate on a 22-kilometre (14 mi) section of the river through the nation's capital.