diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index cace71dbd53..043fe73f137 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -3109,8 +3109,10 @@ dependencies = [
  "deepsize",
  "near-crypto",
  "near-primitives",
+ "once_cell",
  "serde",
  "strum",
+ "time 0.3.9",
  "tokio",
  "tracing",
 ]
diff --git a/chain/network-primitives/Cargo.toml b/chain/network-primitives/Cargo.toml
index d0c1550e76d..e5fe2c749db 100644
--- a/chain/network-primitives/Cargo.toml
+++ b/chain/network-primitives/Cargo.toml
@@ -14,10 +14,12 @@ publish = true
 anyhow = "1.0.51"
 actix = "0.13.0"
 borsh = "0.9"
+once_cell = "1.12.0"
 chrono = { version = "0.4.4", features = ["serde"] }
 deepsize = { version = "0.2.0", optional = true }
 serde = { version = "1", features = ["alloc", "derive", "rc"] }
 strum = { version = "0.24", features = ["derive"] }
+time = "0.3.9"
 tokio = { version = "1.1", features = ["net", "rt-multi-thread"] }
 tracing = "0.1.13"
 
diff --git a/chain/network-primitives/src/lib.rs b/chain/network-primitives/src/lib.rs
index d5c4b44ac6f..6c0b65cecd4 100644
--- a/chain/network-primitives/src/lib.rs
+++ b/chain/network-primitives/src/lib.rs
@@ -2,4 +2,5 @@ mod blacklist;
 pub(crate) mod config;
 pub(crate) mod config_json;
 mod network_protocol;
+pub mod time;
 pub mod types;
diff --git a/chain/network-primitives/src/time.rs b/chain/network-primitives/src/time.rs
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..5b877e8aa38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/chain/network-primitives/src/time.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
+/// Time module provides a non-global clock, which should be passed
+/// as an argument to functions which need to read the current time.
+/// In particular try to avoid storing the clock instances in the objects.
+/// Functions which use system clock directly are non-hermetic, which
+/// makes them effectively non-deterministic and hard to test.
+///
+/// Clock provides 2 types of time reads:
+/// 1. now() (aka POSIX CLOCK_MONOTONIC, aka time::Instant)
+///    time as perceived by the machine making the measurement.
+///    The subsequent calls to now() are guaranteed to return monotonic
+///    results. It should be used for measuring the latency of operations
+///    as observed by the machine. The time::Instant itself doesn't
+///    translate to any specific timestamp, so it is not meaningful for
+///    anyone other than the machine doing the measurement.
+/// 2. utc_now() (aka POSIX CLOCK_REALTIME, aka time::Utc)
+///    expected to approximate the (global) UTC time.
+///    There is NO guarantee that the subsequent reads will be monotonic,
+///    as CLOCK_REALTIME it configurable in the OS settings, or can be updated
+///    during NTP sync. Should be used whenever you need to communicate a timestamp
+///    over the network, or store it for later use. Remember that clocks
+///    of different machines are not perfectly synchronized, and in extreme
+///    cases can be totally skewed.
+use once_cell::sync::Lazy;
+use std::sync::{Arc, RwLock};
+pub use time::error;
+
+// TODO: consider wrapping these types to prevent interactions
+// with other time libraries, especially the the direct access
+// to the realtime (i.e. not through the Clock).
+pub type Instant = time::Instant;
+pub type Utc = time::OffsetDateTime;
+pub type Duration = time::Duration;
+
+// Instant doesn't have a deterministic contructor,
+// however since Instant is not convertible to an unix timestamp,
+// we can snapshot Instant::now() once and treat it as a constant.
+// All observable effects will be then deterministic.
+static FAKE_CLOCK_MONO_START: Lazy<Instant> = Lazy::new(Instant::now);
+
+// An arbitrary non-trivial deterministic Utc timestamp.
+const FAKE_CLOCK_UTC_START: Lazy<Utc> = Lazy::new(|| Utc::from_unix_timestamp(89108233).unwrap());
+
+#[derive(Clone)]
+enum ClockInner {
+    Real,
+    Fake(FakeClock),
+}
+
+/// Clock encapsulates a system clock, allowing to replace it
+/// with a fake in tests.
+/// Since system clock is a source of external information,
+/// it has to be replaced with a fake double, if we want our
+/// tests to be deterministic.
+///
+/// This is a reimplementation of primitives/src/time.rs
+/// with a more systematic approach.
+/// TODO: add tests, put it is some reusable package and use
+/// throughout the nearcore codebase.
+#[derive(Clone)]
+pub struct Clock(ClockInner);
+
+impl Clock {
+    /// Constructor of the real clock. Use it in production code.
+    /// Preferrably construct it directly in the main() function,
+    /// so that it can be faked out in every other function.
+    pub fn real() -> Clock {
+        Clock(ClockInner::Real)
+    }
+    /// Current time according to the monotonic clock.
+    pub fn now(&self) -> Instant {
+        match &self.0 {
+            ClockInner::Real => Instant::now(),
+            ClockInner::Fake(fake) => fake.now(),
+        }
+    }
+    /// Current time according to the system/walltime clock.
+    pub fn now_utc(&self) -> Utc {
+        match &self.0 {
+            ClockInner::Real => Utc::now_utc(),
+            ClockInner::Fake(fake) => fake.now_utc(),
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+struct FakeClockInner {
+    mono: Instant,
+    utc: Utc,
+}
+
+/// TEST-ONLY
+#[derive(Clone)]
+pub struct FakeClock(Arc<RwLock<FakeClockInner>>);
+
+impl FakeClock {
+    /// Constructor of a fake clock. Use it in tests.
+    /// It allows for manually moving the time forward (via advance())
+    /// and arbitrarly setting the UTC time in runtime.
+    /// Use FakeClock::clock() when calling prod code from tests.
+    // TODO: add support for auto-advancing the clock at each read.
+    pub fn new(utc: Utc) -> Self {
+        Self(Arc::new(RwLock::new(FakeClockInner { utc, mono: *FAKE_CLOCK_MONO_START })))
+    }
+    pub fn now(&self) -> Instant {
+        self.0.read().unwrap().mono
+    }
+    pub fn now_utc(&self) -> Utc {
+        self.0.read().unwrap().utc
+    }
+    pub fn clock(&self) -> Clock {
+        Clock(ClockInner::Fake(self.clone()))
+    }
+    pub fn advance(&self, d: Duration) {
+        assert!(d >= Duration::ZERO);
+        let mut c = self.0.write().unwrap();
+        c.mono += d;
+        c.utc += d;
+    }
+    pub fn set_utc(&self, utc: Utc) {
+        self.0.write().unwrap().utc = utc;
+    }
+}
+
+impl Default for FakeClock {
+    fn default() -> FakeClock {
+        Self::new(*FAKE_CLOCK_UTC_START)
+    }
+}
diff --git a/core/primitives/src/time.rs b/core/primitives/src/time.rs
index ebbdca54b3e..2ac9f0bf69f 100644
--- a/core/primitives/src/time.rs
+++ b/core/primitives/src/time.rs
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
 /// Provides structs used for getting time.
+/// TODO: this module is deprecated and scheduled to be replaced with
+/// chain/network-primitives/time.
+///
 /// WARNING WARNING WARNING
 /// WARNING WARNING WARNING
 /// Use at your own risk. The implementation is not complete, we have a places in code not mocked properly.