12-1/2" arm. NewArtVinyl Black Bird. Yea or Nay?

If you like that Russian arm then you can look for Infinity Black Widow or much better Luxman TA-1 tonearm (made by Micro) with removable armtube, both under $700 max.   

Living in Russia i have never heard about this tonearm, but i know for sure that nothing is made here nowadays except for weapons, you'd better look for vintage made in Japan tonearms or something new made in Europe, especially in Germany (like Thomas Schick is $1.2k is not too expensive for you). Lithuanian made Reed are terrific tonearms!   

Hard to find a good Black Widow nowadays but here you go.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.at%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F223832906126

Here is Luxman TA-1 as an alternative to Black Widow (designed for super high compliance cartridges), as far as i know the problem with BW is fragile thin armtube. The Luxman is made of metal, comes with superheavy stabilizer, you can compare it on this image to UA-7082 on my TT.

Luxman tonearm was made by Micro Seiki
I also remember inexpensive Micro Seiki MA-707

Chak
You are correct on the Widow arm tube, handle with care, in fact you need to handle the complete assembly with care ( as we should always do as a matter of course anyway but you get the point).
If memory serves me correctly the Widow came with three different arm tubes depending on vintage, a 2 piece aluminium , a 2 piece carbon fiber and last in line a 1 piece tapered carbon fiber tube.
And I am pretty sure it was the original aluminium tubes that were weaker and got a bad rap.
Certainly one has to be careful with the knife edge bearing assembly for sure.

MA-707 looks like a nice alternative for sure.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Micro-MA-707-Turntable-Tonearm-Arm-Micro-Seiki-Used-Excellent-Condition/143...

Can't beat the quality of Micro Seiki anything, it's all beautifully made. They built a lot of the top end models for other Japanese company's as well. (complete turntables)
BillWojo