The word Dókhali means “little cave”, in a northern dialect of the imagined Méri language, spoken 8500 years ago around the shores of the Sweet Sea. The village is the first setting in the book In the Day of the Flood, and the birthplace of two of the protagonists, Deghóm and her milk brother Láko.
The setting is based on a real cave which later became a monastery at Old Orhei, on the Răut River in Moldova.