In [2]: print 'ывыв'
ывыв

In [3]: str = 'роман'
In [4]: for chr in str:
   ...:     print chr
   ...:     
�
�
�
�
�

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import sys
import locale
reload(sys)
sys.setdefaultencoding(locale.getpreferredencoding())

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import sys
import locale
reload(sys)
sys.setdefaultencoding(locale.getpreferredencoding())
print sys.getdefaultencoding()
print locale.getpreferredencoding()
print sys.stdout.encoding
def translit(someText):
    charList = []
    for char in someText:
        charList.append(char)
        print char
translit('питон')

c0rsair@c0rsair-VirtualBox:~/Documents$ python test1.py 
UTF-8
UTF-8
UTF-8
�
�
�
�
�

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
mystr = u"роман"
for char in mystr:
    print char

str = u"роман"
foo(str)

str=sys.argv[1]
foo(str)

str=unicode(sys.argv[1])
foo(str)