Yle, Finland's national public broadcasting company, revealed Tuesday that its office in Tampere -- the country's third-largest city -- has posted a group of letters and packages to Russia with the new Tom of Finland stamps, to test whether the homoerotic art images fall afoul of Russia's infamous and draconian ban on so-called "gay propaganda."

From Yle's report:

A report by Yle's Tampere bureau explained that two parcels and two letters were sent to addresses in Moscow and St Petersburg on Tuesday. The postage was paid for in full or in part using the raunchy stamps, one of which features a pair of clenched, peach-like buttocks in front of a man's face.

Yle Tampere's report said, "We wanted to test how the Russian postal service and customs would respond to the stamps."

The letters are expected to take up to 9 working days to arrive, while the delivery time for the parcels is normally 14 working days, according to Finland's postal operator. In the meantime readers can keep abreast of the packages' progress via updates on Twitter containing the #TomofRussia hashtag.

However Yle's Russia correspondent Marja Manninen warned that the stunt may turn out to be inconclusive, adding that even correspondence unadorned with gay imagery can take an extremely long time to arrive.

"I've had New Year's cards sent to me from Moscow that don't arrive until March," Manninen said, "so in any case you can expect to wait a few weeks. And with these stamps they may not get there at all."