The memoirs of Vadim Ştefan Pirogan, published in the work “With the thought of you, my Bessarabia” (Encyclopedic Publishing House, Gheorghe Asachi, Chisinau, 1995), present a very precious source regarding the life of the detainees in the Stalinist camps. Among the topics addressed by the memorialist, we selected what referred to the working conditions of the detainees. Thus, Vadim Pirogan remembers the work he did in detention, describing and drawing in detail the difficulties he was given to go through. These memoirs are particularly important given that the archive documents do not really describe the realities in the camps, and these scenes are drawn from memory by the author and show aspects of the daily life of the Stalinist Gula