vak
Всем спасибо!
Путем долгих экспериментов получилось решить проблему так:

text = unicode(text, ‘utf-8’)
str_len = len(text)

bialix
Рекомендую прочитать http://local.joelonsoftware.com/mediawiki/index.php/%D0%90%D0%B1%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8E%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%9C%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%BC%2C_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%B6%D0%B4%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%82%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BC%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D0%9E%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%9E%D0%B1%D1%8F%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE_%D0%94%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD_%D0%97%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C_%D0%BE_Unicode_%D0%B8_%D0%9D%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%85_%D0%A1%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2