diff --git a/spacy/lang/ru/lemmatizer.py b/spacy/lang/ru/lemmatizer.py
index 0d82875af..9da10692e 100644
--- a/spacy/lang/ru/lemmatizer.py
+++ b/spacy/lang/ru/lemmatizer.py
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 # coding: utf8
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
+
 from ...symbols import ADJ, DET, NOUN, NUM, PRON, PROPN, PUNCT, VERB, POS
 from ...lemmatizer import Lemmatizer
+from ...compat import unicode_
 
 
 class RussianLemmatizer(Lemmatizer):
@@ -81,7 +84,7 @@ class RussianLemmatizer(Lemmatizer):
 
     @staticmethod
     def normalize_univ_pos(univ_pos):
-        if isinstance(univ_pos, str):
+        if isinstance(univ_pos, unicode_):
             return univ_pos.upper()
 
         symbols_to_str = {
diff --git a/spacy/tests/lang/ru/test_lemmatizer.py b/spacy/tests/lang/ru/test_lemmatizer.py
index cdc4b67da..b92dfa29c 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/lang/ru/test_lemmatizer.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/lang/ru/test_lemmatizer.py
@@ -39,7 +39,6 @@ def test_ru_lemmatizer_noun_lemmas(ru_lemmatizer, text, lemmas):
     assert sorted(ru_lemmatizer.noun(text)) == lemmas
 
 
-@pytest.mark.models("ru")
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
     "text,pos,morphology,lemma",
     [