Портной распорол и сметал подкладку.

Because some Russian nouns for people have adjective-like endings. Портной is still a noun, not an adjective; it means tailor and here it is the subject of the sentence.

It declines like an adjective:

• портной — nominative
• портного — genitive/accusative
• портному — dative

So in this sentence, портной is nominative singular masculine.

That is the normal marker of the past tense in Russian.

In the singular past, Russian also shows gender:

• masculine: -л
• feminine: -ла
• neuter: -ло

So:

• портной распорол и сметал = a male tailor did it
• if the subject were feminine, you would get распорола и сметала

Подкладку is in the accusative singular because it is the direct object of the verbs.

The base form is подкладка. For most feminine nouns ending in -а, the accusative singular changes to -у:

• nominative: подкладка
• accusative: подкладку

So the sentence structure is basically:

• портной = subject
• распорол и сметал = verbs
• подкладку = object

They are:

• распороть → распорол
• сметать → сметал

Both forms in the sentence are masculine singular past tense.

In sewing vocabulary:

• распороть means to unpick / rip open a seam
• сметать means to baste with loose temporary stitches

Their common imperfective partners are:

• распарывать
• сметывать

Here they are understood as perfective verbs: they present the actions as completed.

That fits the sentence well, because it sounds like a simple report of finished actions:

• the tailor unpicked
• and basted the lining.

In Russian narrative, a chain of perfective past verbs often gives a sequence of completed events.

No. In this sentence it is a sewing term.

Russian сметать can belong to different verbs with different meanings. Outside sewing, a learner may know meanings like sweep away or brush off, but here the clothing word подкладку makes the sewing meaning clear: to baste.

So this is a good example of how context tells you which verb you are dealing with.

Because both verbs share the same object: подкладку.

This works in Russian just as it does in English:

• The tailor unpicked and basted the lining.

Russian does not need to repeat the noun:

• Портной распорол и сметал подкладку.

If you wanted, you could repeat it or replace it with a pronoun, but that would usually be less natural here.

Yes, most readers will understand it that way.

Russian и simply means and, but with two completed actions in a practical context, the natural reading is a sequence:

1. he unpicked the lining
2. then he basted it

The order is not marked with a special tense the way English sometimes does, but real-world logic and the order of the verbs make the sequence clear.

No, Russian word order is fairly flexible.

The order here is neutral and straightforward:

• Портной — subject first
• распорол и сметал — verbs
• подкладку — object at the end

You could change the order for emphasis, for example:

• Подкладку портной распорол и сметал.

That would put extra focus on подкладку, but the basic grammatical relationships stay the same because the case endings show who did what.

A careful stress pattern is:

портно́й распоро́л и смета́л подкла́дку

A few useful notes:

• портно́й — stress on the final -ой
• распоро́л — stress on the last о
• смета́л — stress on а
• подкла́дку — stress on кла́

As usual in Russian, unstressed vowels are reduced in pronunciation, so sounding out every written vowel equally will not sound natural.

Because Russian has no articles.

So портной can mean:

• a tailor
• the tailor

and подкладку can mean:

• a lining
• the lining

Which one is meant comes from context, not from a separate word like a or the.