s = 'фыва'.encode()
print(s)
print(s.decode())

b'xd1x84xd1x8bxd0xb2xd0xb0'
фыва

print(u'u0439')

#XXX DO NOT DO IT
print [u'u0439'.encode('utf-8')] # a bytestring in a list
# -> ['xd0xb9']

$ PYTHONIOENCODING=utf-8 python -c 'print(u"u0439")' > output.txt

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import unicode_literals
print('Здравствуй, мир!')