diff -r cf70f030a744 Lib/test/test_sax.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_sax.py	Wed Jun 18 23:07:46 2014 -0400
+++ b/Lib/test/test_sax.py	Mon Jun 23 21:36:44 2014 +0300
@@ -239,6 +239,7 @@
              "<e a=\"'&quot;\"></e>"
              "<e a=\"&#10;&#13;&#9;\"></e></doc>"))
 
+    @support.requires_unicode
     def test_xmlgen_encoding(self):
         encodings = ('iso-8859-15', 'utf-8',
                      'utf-16be', 'utf-16le',
@@ -248,23 +249,24 @@
             gen = XMLGenerator(result, encoding=encoding)
 
             gen.startDocument()
-            gen.startElement("doc", {"a": u'\u20ac'})
-            gen.characters(u"\u20ac")
+            gen.startElement("doc", {"a": unichr(0x20AC)})
+            gen.characters(unichr(0x20AC))
             gen.endElement("doc")
             gen.endDocument()
 
             self.assertEqual(result.getvalue(), (
                 u'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="%s"?>\n'
-                u'<doc a="\u20ac">\u20ac</doc>' % encoding
+                u'<doc a="%c">%c</doc>' % (encoding, 0x20AC, 0x20AC)
                 ).encode(encoding, 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
 
+    @support.requires_unicode
     def test_xmlgen_unencodable(self):
         result = self.ioclass()
         gen = XMLGenerator(result, encoding='ascii')
 
         gen.startDocument()
-        gen.startElement("doc", {"a": u'\u20ac'})
-        gen.characters(u"\u20ac")
+        gen.startElement("doc", {"a": unichr(0x20AC)})
+        gen.characters(unichr(0x20AC))
         gen.endElement("doc")
         gen.endDocument()
 
@@ -284,6 +286,7 @@
 
         self.assertEqual(result.getvalue(), start + "<doc> </doc>")
 
+    @support.requires_unicode
     def test_xmlgen_encoding_bytes(self):
         encodings = ('iso-8859-15', 'utf-8',
                      'utf-16be', 'utf-16le',
@@ -293,15 +296,15 @@
             gen = XMLGenerator(result, encoding=encoding)
 
             gen.startDocument()
-            gen.startElement("doc", {"a": u'\u20ac'})
-            gen.characters(u"\u20ac".encode(encoding))
+            gen.startElement("doc", {"a": unichr(0x20AC)})
+            gen.characters(unichr(0x20AC).encode(encoding))
             gen.ignorableWhitespace(" ".encode(encoding))
             gen.endElement("doc")
             gen.endDocument()
 
             self.assertEqual(result.getvalue(), (
                 u'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="%s"?>\n'
-                u'<doc a="\u20ac">\u20ac </doc>' % encoding
+                u'<doc a="%c">%c </doc>' % (encoding, 0x20AC, 0x20AC)
                 ).encode(encoding, 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
 
     def test_xmlgen_ns(self):
diff -r cf70f030a744 Lib/xml/sax/expatreader.py
--- a/Lib/xml/sax/expatreader.py	Wed Jun 18 23:07:46 2014 -0400
+++ b/Lib/xml/sax/expatreader.py	Mon Jun 23 21:36:44 2014 +0300
@@ -43,6 +43,14 @@
     _mkproxy = weakref.proxy
     del weakref, _weakref
 
+try:
+    _unicode = unicode
+except NameError:
+    # If Python is built without Unicode support, the unicode type
+    # will not exist. Fake one.
+    class _unicode(object):
+        pass
+
 # --- ExpatLocator
 
 class ExpatLocator(xmlreader.Locator):
@@ -109,7 +117,7 @@
     def prepareParser(self, source):
         if source.getSystemId() is not None:
             base = source.getSystemId()
-            if isinstance(base, unicode):
+            if isinstance(base, _unicode):
                 base = base.encode('utf-8')
             self._parser.SetBase(base)
 
diff -r cf70f030a744 Lib/xml/sax/saxutils.py
--- a/Lib/xml/sax/saxutils.py	Wed Jun 18 23:07:46 2014 -0400
+++ b/Lib/xml/sax/saxutils.py	Mon Jun 23 21:36:44 2014 +0300
@@ -10,10 +10,13 @@
 import xmlreader
 
 try:
+    _UnicodeType = types.UnicodeType
     _StringTypes = [types.StringType, types.UnicodeType]
 except AttributeError:
+    _UnicodeType = types.StringType
     _StringTypes = [types.StringType]
 
+
 def __dict_replace(s, d):
     """Replace substrings of a string using a dictionary."""
     for key, value in d.items():
@@ -97,6 +100,10 @@
             buffer.tell = out.tell
         except AttributeError:
             pass
+    try:
+        unicode
+    except NameError:
+        return buffer
     # wrap a binary writer with TextIOWrapper
     class UnbufferedTextIOWrapper(io.TextIOWrapper):
         def write(self, s):
@@ -180,12 +187,12 @@
         self._write(u'</%s>' % self._qname(name))
 
     def characters(self, content):
-        if not isinstance(content, unicode):
+        if not isinstance(content, _UnicodeType):
             content = unicode(content, self._encoding)
         self._write(escape(content))
 
     def ignorableWhitespace(self, content):
-        if not isinstance(content, unicode):
+        if not isinstance(content, _UnicodeType):
             content = unicode(content, self._encoding)
         self._write(content)
 
@@ -321,19 +328,23 @@
         try:
             sysid = source.getSystemId()
             basehead = os.path.dirname(os.path.normpath(base))
-            encoding = sys.getfilesystemencoding()
-            if isinstance(sysid, unicode):
-                if not isinstance(basehead, unicode):
-                    try:
-                        basehead = basehead.decode(encoding)
-                    except UnicodeDecodeError:
-                        sysid = sysid.encode(encoding)
+            try:
+                encoding = sys.getfilesystemencoding()
+            except AttributeError:
+                pass
             else:
-                if isinstance(basehead, unicode):
-                    try:
-                        sysid = sysid.decode(encoding)
-                    except UnicodeDecodeError:
-                        basehead = basehead.encode(encoding)
+                if isinstance(sysid, unicode):
+                    if not isinstance(basehead, unicode):
+                        try:
+                            basehead = basehead.decode(encoding)
+                        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                            sysid = sysid.encode(encoding)
+                else:
+                    if isinstance(basehead, unicode):
+                        try:
+                            sysid = sysid.decode(encoding)
+                        except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                            basehead = basehead.encode(encoding)
             sysidfilename = os.path.join(basehead, sysid)
             isfile = os.path.isfile(sysidfilename)
         except UnicodeError: