diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/rust-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/rust-packages.nix
index 2ad93feec0b..2f2465a2b17 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/rust-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/rust-packages.nix
@@ -4,16 +4,45 @@
 # version that we define here. If you're having problems downloading / finding
 # a Rust library, try updating this to a newer commit.
 
-{ fetchgit }:
+{ runCommand, fetchgit, git }:
 
-fetchgit {
-  url = git://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index.git;
+let
+  version = "2015-04-20";
 
-  # 2015-04-20
-  rev = "c7112fed5f973e438bb600946016c5083e66b1c9";
-  sha256 = "0vyrz7d6zvh79hx5fg557g93r9qm40wx1g4hx7304lina4smk30h";
+  src = fetchgit {
+      url = git://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index.git;
 
-  # cargo needs the 'master' branch to exist
-  leaveDotGit = true;
-  branchName = "master";
-}
+      rev = "c7112fed5f973e438bb600946016c5083e66b1c9";
+      sha256 = "0vyrz7d6zvh79hx5fg557g93r9qm40wx1g4hx7304lina4smk30h";
+
+      # cargo needs the 'master' branch to exist
+      leaveDotGit = true;
+      branchName = "master";
+  };
+
+in
+
+runCommand "rustRegistry-${version}-${builtins.substring 0 7 src.rev}" {} ''
+  # For some reason, cargo doesn't like fetchgit's git repositories, not even
+  # if we clone them (tested with registry rev
+  # 965b634156cc5c6f10c7a458392bfd6f27436e7e), failing with the message:
+  #
+  # "Target OID for the reference doesn't exist on the repository"
+  #
+  # So we'll just have to create a new git repository from scratch with the
+  # contents downloaded with fetchgit...
+
+  mkdir -p $out
+
+  cp -r ${src}/* $out/
+
+  cd $out
+
+  git="${git}/bin/git"
+
+  $git init
+  $git config --local user.email "example@example.com"
+  $git config --local user.name "example"
+  $git add .
+  $git commit -m 'Rust registry commit'
+''