There is the non-standard babel module which offers this and a lot more:
>>> import babel.dates
>>> babel.dates.format_datetime(locale='ru_RU')
'12 мая 2014 г., 8:24:08'
>>> babel.dates.format_datetime(locale='de_DE')
'12.05.2014 08:24:14'
>>> babel.dates.format_datetime(locale='en_GB')
'12 May 2014 08:24:16'
>>> from datetime import datetime, timedelta
>>> babel.dates.format_datetime(datetime(2014, 4, 1), locale='en_GB')
'1 Apr 2014 00:00:00'
>>> babel.dates.format_timedelta(datetime.now() - datetime(2014, 4, 1),
locale='en_GB')
'1 month'