Багетчик обрезал кант резаком.

• багетчик is in the nominative case because it is the subject of the sentence: the person doing the action.
• обрезал is the verb.
• кант is in the accusative case because it is the direct object: the thing being trimmed/cut.
• резаком is in the instrumental case because it shows the tool used to do the action.

So the basic pattern is:

[subject] + [verb] + [object] + [instrument]

Because кант is a masculine inanimate noun, and in Russian the accusative singular of masculine inanimate nouns is usually the same as the nominative singular.

So:

• nominative: кант
• accusative: кант

If the noun were animate, the accusative would often match the genitive instead.

Russian often uses the instrumental case to express what something is done with.

Here, резаком means with a cutter / using a cutter.

This is very common:

• писать ручкой = to write with a pen
• резать ножом = to cut with a knife
• обрезать резаком = to trim/cut with a cutter

So no extra word like with is needed; the case ending itself carries that meaning.

Обрезал is past tense, and the ending -л is the basic past-tense marker.

In the singular past tense, Russian verbs also show gender:

• обрезал = masculine
• обрезала = feminine
• обрезало = neuter

So this sentence tells you that the subject is understood as male or grammatically masculine.

Because багетчик is a masculine noun, обрезал agrees with it.

Обрезал presents the action as a completed, whole action: he trimmed/cut it off.

By contrast, резал often focuses more on the process or ongoing action: he was cutting / used to cut.

Also, the prefix об- adds the idea of trimming off or cutting around/off, not just cutting in general.

So:

• резал = was cutting / cut in a general sense
• обрезал = trimmed / cut off, completed

No. Russian has no articles, so it does not have direct equivalents of the and a/an.

Whether a noun is understood as the or a usually depends on:

• context
• word order
• emphasis
• what has already been mentioned

So багетчик could mean the framer or a framer, depending on context.

The same is true for кант and резак.

Yes. Russian word order is fairly flexible because the case endings show each word’s role.

The neutral order here is:

Багетчик обрезал кант резаком.

But other orders are possible, for example to change emphasis:

• Резаком багетчик обрезал кант.
• Кант багетчик обрезал резаком.

These versions still mean roughly the same thing, but the focus shifts. English relies much more on fixed word order than Russian does.

Russian usually does not need a subject pronoun if the subject noun is already present.

Since багетчик is explicitly stated, adding он would be unnecessary in a normal sentence.

Russian also often omits pronouns when the meaning is already clear from context.

So Russian tends to be less repetitive than English in this way.

The usual stress is:

• баге́тчик
• обре́зал
• кант
• резако́м

A rough pronunciation guide:

• баге́тчик ≈ ba-GYET-chik
• обре́зал ≈ a-BRYE-zal
• кант ≈ kant
• резако́м ≈ re-za-KOM

Stress matters in Russian, so it is worth learning words together with their stressed syllables.

The suffix -чик often forms a noun meaning a person associated with a job, role, or activity.

So багетчик is a profession/person noun.

English speakers often find it helpful to notice these common Russian noun-building patterns, because they make vocabulary easier to decode.

Other similar profession/person endings include:

• -чик
• -щик
• -тель

Even if you do not know a word yet, a suffix like -чик can hint that it refers to a person who does something.