diff --git a/dockerless/start_stt.sh b/dockerless/start_stt.sh
index 13d62173..415ac7f9 100755
--- a/dockerless/start_stt.sh
+++ b/dockerless/start_stt.sh
@@ -2,6 +2,14 @@
 set -ex
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."
 
+
+# We need libpython because the TTS uses a Python component. STT and TTS have the same executable, so we need
+# to have libpython even if we don't end up using it. For simplicity, we use the same code as for TTS, even though
+# you don't need to install any of these Python packages if you're only using the STT.
+uv venv
+source .venv/bin/activate
+export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(python -c 'import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_config_var("LIBDIR"))')
+
 # A fix for building Sentencepiece on GCC 15, see: https://github.com/google/sentencepiece/issues/1108
 export CXXFLAGS="-include cstdint"