diff --git a/testgres/operations/os_ops.py b/testgres/operations/os_ops.py
index 76284049..34242040 100644
--- a/testgres/operations/os_ops.py
+++ b/testgres/operations/os_ops.py
@@ -20,7 +20,9 @@ def __init__(self, host='127.0.0.1', port=None, ssh_key=None, username=None):
 
 
 def get_default_encoding():
-    return locale.getdefaultlocale()[1] or 'UTF-8'
+    if not hasattr(locale, 'getencoding'):
+        locale.getencoding = locale.getpreferredencoding
+    return locale.getencoding() or 'UTF-8'
 
 
 class OsOperations: