2 Kopecks 15 orbits

The "15 orbits" designation refers to the wheat sheaf on the reverse carrying 15 binding bands, each representing one of the Soviet republics — a count that shifted across decades as the official republic tally changed. The 1957 type with 15 orbits replaced the 16-orbit design used after the Karelo-Finnish SSR was incorporated into the Russian SFSR in 1956, demoted from full republic status. That administrative change quietly propagated through the entire circulating coinage.