diff --git a/tests/fixtures/migration/new_cassette.yaml b/tests/fixtures/migration/new_cassette.yaml
index bf67623..649da68 100644
--- a/tests/fixtures/migration/new_cassette.yaml
+++ b/tests/fixtures/migration/new_cassette.yaml
@@ -1,9 +1,7 @@
-- request: !!python/object:vcr.request.Request
+- request:
     body: null
-    headers: !!python/object/apply:__builtin__.frozenset
-    - - !!python/tuple [Accept-Encoding, 'gzip, deflate, compress']
-      - !!python/tuple [User-Agent, python-requests/2.2.1 CPython/2.6.1 Darwin/10.8.0]
-      - !!python/tuple [Accept, '*/*']
+    headers: {Accept: '*/*', Accept-Encoding: 'gzip, deflate, compress', User-Agent: python-requests/2.2.1
+        CPython/2.6.1 Darwin/10.8.0}
     method: GET
     uri: http://httpbin.org:80/ip
   response:
diff --git a/tests/fixtures/wild/domain_redirect.yaml b/tests/fixtures/wild/domain_redirect.yaml
index 465f071..7b5173a 100644
--- a/tests/fixtures/wild/domain_redirect.yaml
+++ b/tests/fixtures/wild/domain_redirect.yaml
@@ -1,9 +1,6 @@
-- request: !!python/object:vcr.request.Request
+- request:
     body: null
-    headers: !!python/object/apply:__builtin__.frozenset
-    - - !!python/tuple [Accept-Encoding, 'gzip, deflate, compress']
-      - !!python/tuple [User-Agent, vcrpy-test]
-      - !!python/tuple [Accept, '*/*']
+    headers: {Accept: '*/*', Accept-Encoding: 'gzip, deflate, compress', User-Agent: vcrpy-test}
     method: GET
     uri: http://seomoz.org:80/
   response:
@@ -11,12 +8,9 @@
     headers: ["Location: http://moz.com/\r\n", "Server: BigIP\r\n", "Connection: Keep-Alive\r\n",
       "Content-Length: 0\r\n"]
     status: {code: 301, message: Moved Permanently}
-- request: !!python/object:vcr.request.Request
+- request:
     body: null
-    headers: !!python/object/apply:__builtin__.frozenset
-    - - !!python/tuple [Accept-Encoding, 'gzip, deflate, compress']
-      - !!python/tuple [User-Agent, vcrpy-test]
-      - !!python/tuple [Accept, '*/*']
+    headers: {Accept: '*/*', Accept-Encoding: 'gzip, deflate, compress', User-Agent: vcrpy-test}
     method: GET
     uri: http://moz.com:80/
   response:
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_cassettes.py b/tests/unit/test_cassettes.py
index d351ab0..1c5b84c 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_cassettes.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_cassettes.py
@@ -8,7 +8,8 @@ from vcr.errors import UnhandledHTTPRequestError
 def test_cassette_load(tmpdir):
     a_file = tmpdir.join('test_cassette.yml')
     a_file.write(yaml.dump([
-        {'request': 'foo', 'response': 'bar'}
+        {'request': {'body': '', 'uri': 'foo', 'method': 'GET', 'headers': {}},
+         'response': 'bar'}
     ]))
     a_cassette = Cassette.load(str(a_file))
     assert len(a_cassette) == 1
diff --git a/vcr/request.py b/vcr/request.py
index d9dac9d..a840572 100644
--- a/vcr/request.py
+++ b/vcr/request.py
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ class Request(object):
             'method': self.method,
             'uri': self.uri,
             'body': self.body,
-            'headers': self.headers,
+            'headers': dict(self.headers),
         }
 
     @classmethod
diff --git a/vcr/serializers/yamlserializer.py b/vcr/serializers/yamlserializer.py
index 76128b2..df42d9c 100644
--- a/vcr/serializers/yamlserializer.py
+++ b/vcr/serializers/yamlserializer.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-import sys
 import yaml
+
+from vcr.request import Request
 from . import compat
 
 # Use the libYAML versions if possible
@@ -21,25 +22,9 @@ Deserializing: string (yaml converts from utf-8) -> bytestring
 """
 
 
-def _restore_frozenset():
-    """
-    Restore __builtin__.frozenset for cassettes serialized in python2 but
-    deserialized in python3 and builtins.frozenset for cassettes serialized
-    in python3 and deserialized in python2
-    """
-
-    if '__builtin__' not in sys.modules:
-        import builtins
-        sys.modules['__builtin__'] = builtins
-
-    if 'builtins' not in sys.modules:
-        sys.modules['builtins'] = sys.modules['__builtin__']
-
-
 def deserialize(cassette_string):
-    _restore_frozenset()
     data = yaml.load(cassette_string, Loader=Loader)
-    requests = [r['request'] for r in data]
+    requests = [Request._from_dict(r['request']) for r in data]
     responses = [r['response'] for r in data]
     responses = [compat.convert_to_bytes(r['response']) for r in data]
     return requests, responses
@@ -47,7 +32,7 @@ def deserialize(cassette_string):
 
 def serialize(cassette_dict):
     data = ([{
-        'request': request,
+        'request': request._to_dict(),
         'response': response,
     } for request, response in zip(
         cassette_dict['requests'],