Well, guess, I had to give up at some point. Bureaucracy doesn't care and I have no time to spare for it. It hurts, of course, to void the ticket to the world's best and most wanted Ruby-on-Rails conference, but at very least some damage was saved and someone else will take my place at the conference.

My gratitude to the Rails World team and personally to Amanda Perino for helping out with the refund and for sharing insights on visa application process in other cases. As I have assumed, I'm not alone and, most likely, my passport is the reason. The hope was that Swiss permit generates enough credibility to cover for that flaw, but seems like it didn't work out in the end. Too bad!

Well, anyway, it is time to move on.